Engendering Justice - from Policy to Practice - The Fawcett Society

Chapter Five:Justice Needs WomenWomen as Workers in the Criminal Justice SystemNotably, women make up a high proportion of seniorlawyers within the Government legal service, where greateremphasis is placed on flexibility.Interestingly, law firms are not immune from outsidepressure, particularly when it comes from one of their ownclients. General Counsels have at times used their influenceto push diversity up the agenda. For example, BT has builtdiversity into their selection processes for outside law firms.While, Tyco International went so far as to set staff diversitytargets (and a bonus if they were met) to its law firm,Eversheds. 223 The Commission commends this practice.At the top 30 sets of the UK bar, there are only 42 femalecompared to 479 male silks. 224 In 2008/9, 87 men wereappointed as Queen’s Counsel compared to 16 women. Ofparticular concern to the Commission, as Table Five reveals,is that the number of women applying for QC is at its lowestlevel for ten years. It was hoped that the changes to theQC selection process in 2006 which introduced a moretransparent process, would lead to an increase in femaleapplicants, particularly now that the initial self assessmentfilter has been removed and diversity is a competency inits own right within the selection framework. However,while the success rate for female applicants is improving,the small pool of applications from women needs to beaddressed. The Queen’s Counsel Appointments SelectionCommittee should work with the Judicial AppointmentsCommission to share best practice and methods forincreasing the pool of women applicants.This inequality in outcome (such as the small numbersof women applying for silk) which continues to exist canbe attributed to historical inequalities as well as the highattrition rate among female barristers. The bar continuesto be a male-defined environment with implicit and explicitinstitutional structures and practices which have the effectof disadvantaging women. Women now join the Bar inroughly equal numbers to men. However in 2007, 30.94percent of self-employed practitioners were women whilstonly 19.5 percent of self employed practitioners withover 15 years experience were women. 226 Further, anunpublished report dated May 2008 based on a survey ofmore than 3,600 barristers showed that on average menearn almost £100,000 (gross billed income) more thanwomen per annum. 227Barriers to progression to the senior levels of bar can befound in the culture of the profession. For example, theself employed bar involves expectations to work longhours; travel on short notice, a lack of flexibility includingno provision for maternity or caring leave and financial risk.These expectations adversely impact on women and singleparents resulting in many leaving the profession. A BarCouncil study of barristers ceasing self-employed practice,found that the number of women who began a tenancybetween the years 1988 and 1998, and who ceased topractise between the sixth and tenth years of call wasnearly twice that of men. 228 Even the process for appointingSilks will disadvantage women who have taken a break(s) inTable Five – Queen’s Counsel Statistics, 2009 225Totalapplicants1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2006 2007/08 2008/09511 553 506 456 429 394 443 333 247Total awards 60 69 78 77 113 121 175 98 104MaleApplicants 465 504 453 405 385 355 374 276 215Awards 50 60 68 67 101 112 141 78 87FemaleApplicants 46 49 53 51 44 39 68 51 29Awards 10 9 10 10 12 9 33 20 16Page 72