Almira Delibegović-Broome KC

I applied to the Clark Foundation in 1995, to cover my diploma in legal practice tuition fees at Edinburgh University. At that time, I was still an asylum seeker, having arrived to Scotland in 1992 from the war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH).

I believe the funding situation for asylum seekers is different now, as they are entitled to university funding in the same way as Scottish students. That was not the case then, though. The first three years of my studies at Edinburgh were funded by a combination of sponsorship from Balfour and Manson and the university’s own hardship funds.

I managed to complete the LLB (Hons) degree in three, rather than four years, rushing to complete my education and get into the job market – anyone who has been in a similar situation will know what responsibility one feels when one is in receipt of charity. I wanted to stop being a burden on anyone, and make ends meet for myself.

Before the end of my LLB I managed to secure a traineeship offer – I was on course to getting a first-class degree and obtained further exam passes with the Law Society of Scotland for all the subjects I needed, but capacity-wise could not take in the course of my ‘concertinaed’ three years honours degree. This was where the Clark Foundation was so crucial for me – then and for my future life. Without the ability to complete the diploma course, I would not have been able to start my legal career at all. And this is what the Clark Foundation did for me, by so generously giving me a grant that made it possible for me to do that final stage of the journey to becoming a trainee, and in due course, a fully qualified lawyer. It made it possible for all the previous efforts to culminate in a legal career.

I am now a King’s Counsel at the Scots bar. I have had an interesting, enjoyable and varied legal career, interleaved with further academic study and research a couple of times at Harvard Law School (in a way perhaps seeking to compensate for that time when I ‘rushed out’ of university to start work!).

A number of amazing individuals, funds and institutions helped me on my journey to where I am now. The Clark Foundation is central among them. I am immensely grateful and indebted to them. I try to repay that debt in whatever way I can, including through my own voluntary and charitable work. I hope that my legal career in itself, and any contribution I may have made in it to Scots law or the outcomes of those I represent, is a way of thanking the Clark Foundation, as well as those others I have mentioned, who have supported me along the way.