Rebecca Murray: A Stalwart Redefining Leadership at the Bar

Rebecca Murray’s story isn’t the kind of polished, linear career trajectory you usually hear in legal circles. It’s a story of instincts, hard pivots, and an almost relentless belief that she was meant to carve her own space in one of the most tradition-bound professions in Britain. As leading tax barrister in complex high profile cases at Devereux, she has turned her own defiance of the odds into a leadership model that challenges the old structures of the Bar, while proving that expertise and courage can shift an entire field.

Murray didn’t set out to be a barrister. Her early academic path was built on maths, physics, and chemistry, and she once dreamed of flying into space. Law only came into view because it felt versatile; a degree that would leave options open. But in her own words, she hated it until she studied tax. That late discovery was the spark that changed everything. Security was what she craved most, having grown up without it. That need pushed her toward accountancy, not the Bar. She started at Grant Thornton, where she qualified as a Chartered Tax Adviser, and then jumped to JP Morgan in 2006. There, she quickly rose to Vice President, the youngest in her division, working on massive corporate transactions. On paper, it was a dream job. But she was restless.

“I was itching to get out of the corporate environment and find my own voice,” she recalls. It was a leap most people would have thought reckless: leaving a senior role at JP Morgan, with no pupillage lined up, just a gut feeling that the Bar was where she was meant to be.

Breaking into a closed world

That instinct led her to Temple Tax Chambers. The welcome was far from warm. Her Oxbridge-free résumé stood out in the wrong way. Senior barristers told her she was wasting her time, and one made it clear that women couldn’t succeed at the Bar. Her pupil master even let her know she had been chosen over his friend, a decision he clearly resented.

The hostility might have crushed a less determined candidate. Murray responded by working harder than anyone else, taking on every case, every late-night piece of research, with no feedback and barely a living wage. At the same time, her personal life was chaotic: her father was in a coma after a failed bypass, she was helping fund and organize her sister’s wedding, and her future husband’s ex-wife—herself a barrister—was actively undermining her reputation.

It was a test of resilience that went far beyond technical skill. And it was in that crucible that she caught her break.

The poisoned chalice that changed everything

Her first case was never supposed to be hers to win. A colleague handed it to her expecting her to fail. The client was told his appeal was hopeless, that he’d likely lose his house. Instead of seeing it as a setup, Murray treated it like a lifeline.

She dissected the evidence, found flaws in HMRC’s case, and in cross-examination undermined their witness so effectively that she won. Her client kept his home.

It was the moment she proved, not only to her doubters but to herself, that she belonged. Within nine months she earned tenancy, built her reputation, and went on to win high-profile cases that made front-page news, including Tower MCashback v HMRC and Eclipse Film Partners v HMRC.

Leadership built on self-belief

Murray’s leadership style is rooted in those early battles. She knows what it means to be underestimated, dismissed, and judged by markers that have nothing to do with competence. At Devereux, she has built her practice around expertise, integrity, and the belief that clients deserve more than recycled arguments.

Her approach is obsessive in the best sense: she writes books and technical articles, not just for profile, but because deep learning makes her sharper for clients. She gives talks, publishes on LinkedIn, and refuses to water down technical debate, even if the algorithm doesn’t favor it. Her network sees her not just as a barrister, but as someone raising the level of the entire conversation.

Her recent victory in Benoit d’Angelin v HMRC is a good example. The case hinged on the definition of “value” in an anti-avoidance provision. HMRC argued it should be interpreted as gross value, ignoring consideration given in return. Murray dismantled that position by showing that across statutes; Parliament had never used “value” in that way. It was meticulous work that paid off. For Murray, those moments are the most rewarding—when months of technical strategy turn into a client’s win.

Speaking up in a broken system

Success hasn’t blinded her to the problems at the Bar. In fact, it has sharpened her voice. She is outspoken about the systemic failures of the profession: the worsening gender pay gap, the culture of bullying and harassment, the steady exodus of women in their thirties.

She bristles at the common talking point that “more women are entering the Bar than men.” It’s irrelevant, she argues, if the profession then drives them out before they can rise to senior levels. The numbers don’t lie: under 20 percent of silks are women. The culture, she says, is still patriarchal, hierarchical, and resistant to real change.

Her proposed solutions are as pragmatic as they are radical. First, she wants regulators to make instructing counsel accountable. Right now, solicitors and clients choose barristers in a closed market, often based on old networks and bias. Murray argues for a system where multiple advocates must be considered for a case, forcing decision-makers to justify their choices. Second, she wants complaints of harassment and bullying to be taken seriously, with proper mechanisms for action rather than quiet dismissal.

These aren’t abstract talking points for her. They come from lived experience of fighting uphill, and from watching talented women leave because the profession made family and career seem mutually exclusive.

A different model of leadership

What makes Murray’s leadership distinctive is how she merges technical mastery with a broader sense of mission. She is deeply technical—few can match her command of tax law—but she refuses to be defined only by the cases she wins. She uses her platform to set higher standards of discourse, to demand accountability from regulators, and to create a space where women at the Bar can imagine sustainable careers.

Her leadership isn’t about charisma or self-promotion. It’s about standing firm in spaces where she wasn’t welcome, proving through results that she deserves to be there, and then working to ensure the next generation doesn’t face the same barriers.

What this really means

Rebecca Murray’s career is a case study in what happens when instinct, persistence, and technical brilliance converge. She took a leap from corporate security into one of the most unwelcoming professional environments in Britain, endured rejection, hostility, and personal upheaval, and built herself into a barrister whose expertise commands respect.

But her legacy won’t just be the high-stakes cases she has won. It will be the way she has used her platform to call out the profession’s failings, to demand structural reforms, and to show that leadership at the Bar doesn’t have to look like the old guard.

The Silicon Review often celebrates entrepreneurs who disrupt industries with technology. Murray is doing something just as significant: disrupting a profession built on hierarchy, precedent, and tradition, by showing that you can succeed without bowing to its outdated norms.

And in that sense, Rebecca Murray isn’t just leading at Devereux. She is reshaping what leadership looks like in law.