This portrait of solicitor Julie Condliffe, one of the Law Society’s latest social mobility ambassadors, hangs in the lobby at Chancery Lane. Condliffe, a partner at Premier Solicitors, grew up in Harare. She recalls arriving in this country when she had to sleep in a phone booth with nowhere to go and no one to tell. Why the boxing gloves? ‘For an atypical solicitor like me, a legal career can be a battlefield,’ she says. ‘The battle of the mind was the biggest for me and I had to learn to win over my own insecurities. You either fight or run forever. I still fight daily, but I win.’

Julie Condliffe