Crime
general civil work and crime”. She enjoyed the advocacy in criminal cases – usually short jury trials for either the prosecution or defence in matters such as assault, burglary, robbery and drugs offences – and naturally began to lean in that direction. As her practice developed, she specialised further into fraud. In addition to finding fulfilment and enjoyment in the specialism, Ini explains that moving in this direction “also suited me and the work-life balance I was comfortable with. In the early days, I found the travel to courts all over the country and the uncertainty very challenging. When you’re a junior, at four o’clock in the afternoon you’ll be given a trial that starts the next morning, at 10 o’clock, and you’re necessarily working right up until you go into court to get your arguments up to standard and ensure you’ve digested the papers. There’s a thrill that comes with that and you run on adrenaline, but when it becomes your daily life it requires a lot of flexibility and stamina and it’s hard – anyone starting out needs to prepare for that. I have three young children so that lifestyle wasn’t compatible, or sustainable, with my family life”. Moreover, Ini enjoys the detailed planning and preparation that’s needed for a complex fraud case – although she doesn’t rule out a return to more general criminal work later in her career. Fighting organised crime Currently, Ini is principally involved in prosecuting complex fraud cases involving money laundering and serious organised crime, with extended lead times and lengthy trials. “I’m instructed quite early on in cases so a lot of my time is spent helping with the preparation and shaping the argument, then there are big chunks of time in court for trials, which tend to run for several weeks,” she notes. “I recently completed a money- laundering case which involved more than 25 defendants, so it was split into a number of trials; by the time those trials finished I’d been working on the case for three years.”
At the criminal Bar you may be called on to act for either the defence or the prosecution. Specialist criminal law chambers offer expertise in all areas, including drug offences, violent and sexual crime, fraud and white collar crime. As might be expected, criminal barristers spend more time in court than those in almost any other sector of the Bar. The international aspect of criminal law includes human rights, terrorism, war crimes, organised crime, drug trafficking and money laundering. “Once you find an area of practice that you enjoy and excel in, you almost organically start getting more instructions in that specialism. Your talent will be recognised. It may not be the area that you anticipated,” Ini Udom muses on her career path that started with a mixed caseload of civil work and crime and gravitated toward general criminal law, before specialising in financial crime and fraud. The root of her passion for criminal law can be traced to her childhood, when conversations with her father, who studied law but didn’t practice, and TV courtroom dramas sparked her interest in becoming a lawyer. This interest was always centred on the courtroom and the intricacies of criminal trials. She completed pupillage at what was then 1 Harcourt Buildings in Middle Temple, which later moved out of Temple to acquire its own premises and become 5 St Andrew’s Hill, as it’s known today. The set predominantly specialises in crime, although it’s also diversified into other areas. Ini’s pupil supervisor during her first six specialised in construction law, while in her second six she was supervised by a barrister with a general crime practice. As a result, she had broad foundation from which to build her own career. Building a practice In the first few years of practice, she started undertaking “a mixture of personal injury,
For more chambers that work in this practice area, please use the ‘Pupillage index’.
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