Frances completed her training contract at Pinsents in Birmingham in 1990 and then went on to take up the position of Assistant Solicitor in Birmingham City Council’s Legal Services Department 1993-1998, where she practiced in Child Care and Adoption, Mental Health and Education Law
In 1998 Frances took up her first teaching role at Wolverhampton University, teaching on the Legal Practice Course and then in 2000, she assumed the role of senior lecturer and Programme Director for the Block Learning course at the newly established College of Law in Birmingham.
In 2002 Frances moved to Staffordshire University where she went on to be appointed as a Principal Lecturer and Academic Partnerships Manager for the Faculty of Business, Education and Law with responsibility for UK and international partners, travelling to partnership colleges and presenting at review and revalidation events. Frances taught across the LLB, LLM and Legal Practice courses, in the following areas: Business and Tax Law, Contract Law, Accounting, Professional Conduct and Ethics, Childcare, Private Client, Commercial, Corporate Finance and Acquisitions Law, and Legal Skills.
Frances joined Aston University’s Law School in 2017 where, as a senior lecturer, she taught in the areas of Contract, Legal Skills, and Business Law. She was also Programme Director for the online MBA April 2019- November 2021, during the height of the pandemic when numbers and the success of this course reached an all time high.
Frances was careers and Placements lead and Public Engagement Convenor for the Law School, as well as acting as a member of the University’s Decolonisation of the Curriculum working group. Frances introduced the negotiation competition to Aston University with great success, and for which she received a faculty award in July 2018.
Frances has been a member of Birmingham Law Society and its Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee since 2019. Her passion is to highlight the importance of employability skills across all awards, and to enhance standards for the new route to qualification. Frances has acted as a mentor for the Young Women in Leadership programme August 2022, welcoming adolescents aged 14-16 from all over the world, and to encourage them to have high aspirations and feel inspired to follow their chosen career path. This programme was led by Birmingham City Council and supported by Aston University, with approximately 100 young women benefitting from the experience.
Frances has experience of professional assessing, acting as an assessor for the Qualified Lawyers Transfer Scheme. In addition, Frances has been part of a team which has developed the portfolio of assessment for the pilot SQE1 paper for the Solicitors’ Regulatory Authority.