Cherie Blair Delivers Lecture
2009 Day Pitney Visiting Scholar
Cherie Blair
Noted Human Rights Lawyer and
Campaigner for Women's Equality
Cherie Blair is a leading human rights lawyer and a passionate campaigner for women’s equality across the world. She also actively promotes work-life balance policies, having herself experienced the pressures of combining a demanding career with being the wife of Tony Blair and a mother of four. The New York Times wrote: “Cherie Blair is viewed as something of wonder woman for her ability to balance her high-powered professional life, high-visibility public life and intensely consuming private life.” But Cherie has shrugged off the wonder-woman tag, noting wryly that her life is as chaotic as most working mothers.
There was nothing in Cherie Blair’s background to suggest a distinguished career. Having been brought up by a single mother in a modest home in Liverpool, she was the first member of her family to attend university. But having won a place at the London School of Economics, she graduated with first class honours in law and went on to top her year in her Bar examinations. In 1995, she was appointed to Queen’s Counsel as the most senior lawyers in England are known, specializing in employment and human rights law and is regularly asked to appear in courts abroad. She also serves as a part-time judge.
During Tony Blair’s decade as Prime Minister, she was often at his side at international summits, on international trips and during election campaigning. But she also made many independent visits, often linked to the many charities with which she is associated. They include the children’s charity Barnardo’s, the disability charity SCOPE, Breast Cancer Care and the Loomba Trust which helps widows and their children across the world. She takes a very active role in their work, visiting projects home and abroad. Cherie Blair is an ambassador for London 2012 and a member of UNICEF’s Global Task Force on Water.
Cherie Blair’s much-anticipated autobiography, Speaking for Myself, was published in the UK in the Spring of 2008, with a U.S. release in the Fall of 2008. It reached #1 on the London Times Bestseller List within three days of sales. As a barrister and a judge, Cherie Blair is used to speaking on behalf of other people. As last she speaks for herself, in this fascinating memoir, offering a warm, intimate and often very funny portrait of a family living in extraordinary circumstances. Cherie Blair also co-authored The Goldfish Bowl, a fascinating account of the life in Downing Street from the perspectives of the spouses and families of past Prime Ministers.
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