Cherie Blair, known professionally as Cherie Booth QC, is a barrister. She is married to the former prime minister, Tony Blair, and is a practising Catholic.
Cherie was born in Bury, near Manchester, in 1954, and grew up in Liverpool. Her father, actor Tony Booth, left her mother, Gale, when Cherie was eight years old. Cherie and her younger sister, Lyndsey, were brought up by their mother and paternal grandmother, Vera Booth, a devout Roman Catholic.
After attending Catholic schools in Crosby in Liverpool, Cherie went on to study law at the London School of Economics, graduating with a First Class degree. She later came top of her year in the bar exams while teaching law at the University of Westminster.
In 1976, while studying to become a barrister, she met Tony Blair. She obtained a pupillage in the chambers of Derry Irvine, where he was also taken on. They married in 1980 and have four children Euan, Nicholas, Kathryn and Leo.
A member of Lincoln's Inn, Cherie Blair became a barrister in 1976 and Queen's Counsel in 1995. In 1999, she was appointed a Recorder (a permanent part-time judge) in the County Court and Crown Court. She was Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University from 1999-2006 and was then awarded the honorary title of Emeritus Chancellor. She is also a Governor of the London School of Economics and the Open University.
She is a founding member of Matrix Chambers, established in London in 2000, from which she continues to practise as a barrister. Matrix specialises in human rights law, though its members also practise in a range of areas of UK, European Union and international law. Cherie Blair specialises in employment, discrimination and public law, and has occasionally represented claimants taking cases against the UK government.
