Meet the lawyer who overcame bullying early on in her career to become a partner

The childcare solicitor and director at Switalskis was born and raised in Blackburn before her family moved to Leicester when she was in her teens.

“My culture is incredibly important to me,” Ms Jogi said. “When I go home back to Leicester, back to my mum and dad, I’m not a lawyer, I’m a daughter.”

Her father came to the UK from the state of Gujarat in India at the age of 15. Shortly after he started working at the mills in Heckmondwike while her mother was originally born and raised in Malawi.

Ms Jogi said: “The work ethos that my parents had was phenomenal. My parents moved from Heckmondwike to Blackburn around 1973.

“When I was a toddler my mum persuaded my dad to invest in a corner shop. My mum had two children under three when she started running a little corner shop.”

Her family would go from the corner shop to owning a newsagent in Blackburn. When they moved to Leicester in 1991, her family acquired a newsagent there. It was while helping out at the family newsagent that Ms Jogi initially toyed with the idea of becoming a journalist. However, her parents hoped that she would become a doctor.

“I’m actually a failed doctor,” she laughed. “That wasn’t going to be me. I was rubbish at science.”

When she was at sixth form, law “became a major interest” but she was almost put off going into the profession by her LLB degree, which she said “was the most boring and driest subject that anybody could do”.

“But then the practical comes when you do your Legal Practice Course and at that point my interest was piqued again,” she added.

In 1998, she moved to West Yorkshire to work for a small high street practice in Dewsbury, which she admits was “ a bit of a shock to the system” but Ms Jogi settled down quickly.

Ms Jogi ended up at Howard and Co in Barnsley, where she qualified as a solicitor in 2001.

She did a fair amount of injunction work getting protective orders for predominantly women from husbands and partners, which saw her gravitate towards domestic violence work.

“It was very quick work and you felt that you were actually helping,” she said. “I liked helping. It was instant relief, instant help that you were providing.”

Despite the firm not being able to afford her as a fully qualified solicitor, she stayed on for an extra year on a trainee’s salary.

She said: “For me, that continued experience was very important. Then in August 2002 I moved back to Leicester and secured a job as a newly-qualified lawyer.”

While it was always her intention to return home to Leicester, things didn’t go well in the job there. Ms Jogi said she was subjected to a “campaign of bullying”.

“It was initially comments like ‘why are you wearing a suit when you’re not going to court’. ‘Your shoes are too high’. ‘Why do you speak like that? Tone it down’,” she recalled.

Ms Jogi lasted just a few months in the post before the firm decided to part ways with her in December 2002. The whole experience was “awful”, she said.

“I had gone from a very safe place, Barnsley. It had a wonderful legal community. It was a small legal community that looked after each other,” Ms Jogi added.

“I plummeted into a bit of a depression and spent January and February in bed, waking up in time for Countdown and The Weakest Link,” she said.

However, in late March, a friend in Dewsbury alerted her to the opportunity of covering a maternity post at Switalskis. From there she never looked back.

Initially, Ms Jogi was based in the Wakefield office but was moved to Bradford by founder Stephen Switalski. Ms Jogi was appointed a partner at the law firm in 2012. It was a big moment.

She said: “I’d come from another firm where I had undergone unpleasant experiences, which caused me to doubt myself as a lawyer and also as a person.

“Within days of arriving at Switalskis I felt validated. I thought I was doing a good job. To be offered the partnership here, it blew my mind.”

She was head of the domestic violence unit but became a full member of the childcare team in 2020. However, Ms Jogi still continues to work on forced marriage cases. Forced marriage is a complex subject, she said. “We will never know in my opinion the extent of the problem.”

The age demographic that she speaks to most frequently is 18 to 24 but when the advice comes to making an application to the courts for a forced marriage protection order, it falls through.

She said: “In the majority of the cases the perpetrators are the parents – one or both – and other family members who are applying the pressure for a marriage that the young person doesn’t want.

“In 9.5 cases out of ten they will backtrack simply because of the fact that they don’t want to take their parents to court.”

Forced marriage legislation now enables third parties to apply with local authorities even intervening on behalf of young people.

There are also more subtle ways that pressure is exerted on people when it comes to marriage.

Ms Jogi believes it is a cultural issue. “I’m from a community where it happens,” she added.

However, young people are more aware of their rights and society has advanced, Ms Jogi said.

Alongside barrister Louise McCallum and Clive Heaton QC, she even co-authored a book called Forced Marriage: A Special Bulletin. Off the back of the book she was shortlisted for a Law Society Excellence Award in 2009.

Switalskis is growing exponentially. Ms Jogi very much wants to be a part of that. She said: “I just hope to carry on doing what I’m doing as best as I can. I’ve moved over to doing childcare work. There’s so much to learn and I’m learning from my team members.”

While she hopes to develop further as a lawyer, Ms Jogi won’t be forgetting her own heritage.

Curriculum vitae

Title: Childcare solicitor and director

Date of birth: 23/01/74

Lives: Dewsbury

Favourite holiday destination: Barbados and Cape Town

Last book read: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Favourite film: The Shawshank Redemption

Favourite song: Love Bollywood/modern Pakistani pop and general pop (particularly the 90s)

Car driven: A blue one! Next one will be red!

Most proud of: Being shortlisted for solicitor of the year at the Law Society Excellence Awards 2009, family lawyer of the year at the Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year 2012 and professional of the year at the Yorkshire Asian Business Association 2017, which I won.