Good to see so many women on the thread earning large sums from all kinds of backgrounds. It helps encourage others to see this is possible, particularly when teenage girls are making important life choices.
On the questions someone asked
Do you have very good A level results? Yes. AAB in days before A*s and they were also much better than anyone else in the school if you want to make it a contextual issue. Lots of people got none or DDE and most did not go to university.
Do you have a first or 2:1 from good university in sought after subject? Yes. 2/1 in law and I won an entrance scholarship there sitting 3 x 3hour specific exams and won prize as top of year 1 and 2 top / joint top prizes in year 2 (in the days when we had one person only get a first and 2/3 of people only got s 2.2.
What did you do in your holidays from sixth form? Read books mostly. After upper sixth I had a residential job usually fora month in the summer holidays on a children's camp domestic assistant and then I did the training course and 2 years later was a children's monitor.
What extracurricular achievements do you have? I did about 10,000 hours plus of music as a teenager, 4 grade 8s, did loads of singing and other music at university; lots of reading; wrote some books (not published at that stage) and some other things. I got a book from the library when I was 15 on how to touch type and used my life savings to buy a typewriter and wrote books etc.
What were your achievements in your first job and what additional accredited qualifications did you obtain? With law getting started was and is hard. I applied to 140 London law firms over about 6 - 8 months at university and had 25 interviews before getting the first job offer and then you have law post grad to do and your 2 year training contract.
Did you just do one job? If so, how did you broaden your skills and cv? No I moved firms when I qualified to possibly the best law firm in the UK in London.
Have you sought promotion frequently? In the sense of moving law firms - worked at 3 before founding my own (and I set it up in part because I was not made a partner at my last firm).
Have you persisted until you get promotion? Yes in the sense of branching out on my own. [ Which is wonderful as you get to keep all the money!]
Have you continued to gain additional qualifications as you move up the ladder? It does not quite work like that in legal careers but I aimed to be a leader in my field, wrote 30 law books, contributed to lots of others, gave about 1700 legal talks (including in places like Iran, Nigeria, Dubai, Trinidad and places in Europe - not easy when you have small children) over my career, went on TV a bit and radio to keep up my public profile , on some committees and that kind of thing,
Have you put in the hours and can you show ongoing leadership, innovation and sustained achievement? Yes worked very hard eg worked until in labour, took 2 weeks annual leave, back full time after 2 - 3 weeks etc kind of working hard.
Have you been willing to move for promotion or broader experience? Yes for my first job (been in London since) and more importantly my husband moved hundreds of miles and sold his house and got a job in London to move for my career as I would always earn more than he would ( he is a teacher).