Extract taken from a BBC report:

'Like many other MPs, Vera Baird is a barrister. Like a few other MPs, she is a QC. Few other MPs, however, have had quite such a high profile legal career before their entry to Parliament.

As a member of the chambers of Michael Mansfield, Ms Baird has taken a part in some of the key civil liberties cases.

She successfully represented the women accused of criminal damage of Hawk jets waiting to be sold to Indonesia and also took part in the case following an attack on the Trident nuclear submarine.

She became a barrister after graduating from Newcastle Polytechnic, where she was active in student politics at the same time as Jack Straw was president of the NUS.

Having come from a working class background in Oldham via grammar school, she is committed to free education and has said that she would like to see an end to tuition fees at universities.

A lot of her pre-election work focused around legal issues and as a leading member of Women for Justice she was involved in reforms of the laws surrounding rape.

However, she is also very interested in reform of workplace law, especially as it effects women.

Some of the important cases in which Vera has been involved:
R v Bowden & Ors 1990  Full Sutton Prison Riot
 
R v Brown & Ors  Orgreave Miners Riot
 
R v Lord & Ors 1993  Strangeways Riot and Murder
 
R v Hepburn & Ors  Risley Prison Riot
 
R v Emma Humphreys 1995  Battered woman who killed her violent husband
 
Greenpeace & Allbright & Wilson Ltd 1995 Prosecution for Greenpeace of chemical company polluting the Irish Sea
 
R v Wilson & Ors 1996  Four ploughshares demonstrators acquitted of damaging a Hawk fighter plane bound for East Timor
 
R v Martin & Grainey 1997 Duress defence for woman who killed her violent husband
 
R v Kray & Field 1998 Drug gangster case
 
R v Mills & Poole 1998  Important murder precedent
 
R v Brand 1999 First use of Aspergers Syndrome in diminished responsibility
 
R v H & D 1999-2000 Trial, Judicial Review and Appeal of 14 year old killer
 
R v Alisa Brookes; R v Susan McGrath; R v Lesley Roberts, R v June Wilkie; R v Tara Fell; R v Anita Muscroft; R v Josephine; R v Jane Andrews; R V Donna    Battered women who killed their violent partners
 
R v X, Y & Z  2000  Human Rights case to House of Lords
 
R v Morgan Jones Smith 2000  Intervention brief for womens groups in case of provocation manslaughter
 
R v A  2001 Intervention brief for womens groups in case of rape

Other cases with which Vera has been involved include the Wapping Dispute, Anti-Poll Tax, Anti-Apartheid, Animal Rights, Greenpeace, Menwith Hill, Anti-Arms trade/anti-nuclear, many trades union and other demonstration cases.