Rabia Siddique – a retired British Army officer, former war terrorism and war crimes prosecutor and criminal and human rights lawyer – had led a life more extraordinary than most people, let alone lawyers.

As a survivor of both child sexual abuse and a hostage situation in war-torn Iraq (during which she was tortured), she has an intricate understanding of what it means to be resilient and the importance of helping those in need.

Speaking recently on The Lawyers Weekly Show, she recounted how those experiences, among others, have shaped her life and outlook – and, how what she’s been through led her to deduce that lawyers must be resilient in order to lead during the global coronavirus pandemic.

When asked if the myriad traumatic episodes in her personal and professional lives offered any lessons for lawyers in navigating the hardship of the pandemic, Ms Siddique said – without wanting to belittle “the personal and professional impact that it’s had on us all… psychological, economic, emotional” – that, at this critical juncture, lawyers have two choices.

“We can either respond to this with fear and with resignation, that this is bigger than us… that this has the potential to completely change and ruin and devastate us. Or, we can take the other path and we can look at this with hope and see this as an opportunity,” she proclaimed.

“[It is] an opportunity to step up and to actually embrace something that as a professional we’ve been called upon for a long time to do, which is to look at what we do and how we do it differently. I think our survival depends on us taking that latter choice.”

This is especially pertinent, Ms Siddique continued, given the role that lawyers have in ensuring a stable, functioning society. As a result, she said, lawyers “need to get to grips with it quickly” if they are going to lead those around them.

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“We have to grasp the nettle and get our heads around the fact that we are living in a new paradigm. This is going to be a new normal, if not for months, for years, and we have to embrace something that [as] a legal profession we haven’t been great at and that is innovation and creativity,” she mused.

“We have to find a way to serve our clients and our community in ways that they can now find it accessible. The courts – which are one of our most conservative institutions – have already grasped the nettle. I have many friends that appear in courts day in, day out, that are appearing by videoconference and live webcast, so we’re already being shown the way and we are incredibly fortunate here in our part of the world that we have the resources and the platforms to be able to do things differently.”

The pandemic may also serve as a “leveller”, Ms Siddique added, whereby ingrained gender norms can be addressed in daily legal practice.

“Everybody, males and females alike, are being invited and given the opportunity to serve and practice in a way that also allows some balance and allows us to spend time, paradoxically, more time at home and with our families and loved ones,” she noted.

“My generation was pretty much expected to make a choice, and that is not acceptable to the generation coming after us. They are demanding quality of life, and they are demanding a sense of balance and holistic life and work existence.

So, I think this will force us to navigate a new path, and I choose to see this as exciting. I think that for those of us able and equipped to do so, that’s the choice we have to make. We have to show the way.”

To listen to the full conversation with Rabia Siddique, click below: