Crown Prosecutor
Leaving school at the age of 16 has not stopped high-flying Olivia Gooding from achieving her dream career.
A Senior Crown Prosecutor with the 
Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in Cambridge since last year, Olivia never knows quite what to expect when she comes into work.
Part of her role involves making charging decisions at Cambridge and Ely Magistrates Courts, deciding if criminal cases have enough evidence to be prosecuted. So far she's dealt with anything ranging from racially-aggravated assault trials to cases involving allegations of theft and harassment.
Kept on her toes
Olivia has to expect the unexpected – an element she relishes about her job with the CPS.
“I love the fact that every day is different,” the mother-of-one says.
“You just don’t know what you are going to get. It’s a real adrenaline buzz.”
Olivia is used to being kept on her toes; as a teenager she danced competitively for eight years, specialising in Latin American ballroom dancing. Her hobby provided a healthy “release” from her hectic schedule and helped to keep her motivated in her quest to learn the legal profession through unconventional channels.
An unconventional career path
Rather than study Law at university, Olivia left school at 16, joining an Essex solicitors’ firm as an office junior. She didn't consider fulltime study as both her older sisters had left school at the same age – but refused to let her decision become a barrier to achieving her goal.
“I wanted to get into law. If I couldn’t get into law I was going to do Theatre Studies.”
The drama of the courtroom, however, proved exciting enough for Olivia, who recalls being thrilled by visits to the Royal Courts of Justice and Bow Street Magistrates Court at 16.
After completing an A-Level Law course at night school, Olivia went on to train as a Legal Executive at Chelmsford College two years later, working fulltime at a local solicitors’ firm and attending night classes twice a week.
She studied through the Institute of Legal Executives (ILEX), a professional body set up in 1963 with the support of the Law Society to enable people working in the profession to become qualified lawyers while training on the job. Legal Executives have to pass the ILEX Professional Qualification in Law in an area of legal practise to the same level as that required of solicitors. They spend at least five years working under the supervision of a solicitor in legal practise or in the legal department of a private company or government body.
Olivia, who trained in Civil Litigation, specialising in personal injury cases, enjoyed studying alongside other legal employees and swapping stories.
“At the age of 18 I was drawing on other people’s experiences of what their firms did.”
She qualified as a Legal Executive in 2002, going on to study Legal Practise at Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford two years later and qualifying as a Solicitor in November 2005. During the course, she became fascinated in Criminal Law, particularly advocacy, and left a private firm to join the CPS in July 2006.
“It’s been a huge learning curve but very, very interesting.”
Working for the Crown Prosecution Service
As a Senior Crown Prosecutor, Olivia enjoys the face-to-face contact she has with crime victims, even though their stories can be harrowing.
Her former work, dealing with personal injury cases, often involved contacting bereaved families. The experience helped to prepare her for some of the more traumatic aspects of her current job.
“You are always going to come across some cases that affect you more than others…I can’t say it never affects you because it does but you have to deal with it.”
Every day brings new challenges for Olivia – and the sky’s the limit when it comes to career progression opportunities within the CPS, so she’s always learning and expanding on her skills.
“If you are a solicitor but want to do trials in the Crown Court eventually, CPS really opens doors for you to do that.”