Following a successful career at the Bar, in October 2004, Dame Linda became the first non-white high court judge in the UK. At the Bar she was a member of, and chaired, a number of different committees, including the Race Relations, Equal Opportunities, Professional Conduct and Professional Standard Committees. In 2003 she became the Chairman of the Criminal Bar Association where she formed an equality and diversity sub-committee. Whilst on the Bench she was the Senior Liaison Judge for Diversity, Chair of the Magisterial Committee of the Judicial Studies Board and Chair of the International Committee of the Judicial College. Dame Linda is a contributing and consultant editor to a number of legal publications and has been involved in the training of lawyers and judges both in the UK and internationally for over 20 years. She holds 5 honorary doctorates; she is a Fellow of the Judicial College; a member of the Court of Governors at the London School of Economics where she chairs its Ethics Policy Committee. She is a patron of a number of charities (including two in Sierra Leone and two in South Africa) and she sits on a number of advisory committees. She has been named in the past as one of Britain’s most powerful black women and one of the 100 Great Black Britons and she has featured regularly in the Power 100 List of Influential Black Britons. In 2013 Dame Linda stepped down from the Bench to pursue her various interests, including training of judges and lawyers internationally (in particular, in the Caribbean and Africa), and commercial mediation. She also works with the charities she is connected to which includes work on diversity.