THE AUSTRALIAN BAR IS GOING BACKWARDS. SHOULDN’T THERE BE MORE WOMEN SILKS,

According to this article by Richard Ackland which appeared in The Guardian on 8 September 2015, over half of all law graduates are women and so is more than 20{6c0a4e1ac7e55840cfe639ecf4b11dafaf03aa04ee92fd19e6f871f32a3a63fe} of the NSW bar. Yet this year, women make up less than 10{6c0a4e1ac7e55840cfe639ecf4b11dafaf03aa04ee92fd19e6f871f32a3a63fe} of applicants for senior counsel. The number of applicants for silk in NSW are already known: 113 in all, of whom less than 10{6c0a4e1ac7e55840cfe639ecf4b11dafaf03aa04ee92fd19e6f871f32a3a63fe} are women, one of the lowest rates for female applicants in recent years, and this at a time when a special effort is being made to advance the career prospects of women barristers. Last year 15.7{6c0a4e1ac7e55840cfe639ecf4b11dafaf03aa04ee92fd19e6f871f32a3a63fe} of the silk applicants in NSW were women and the year before 13{6c0a4e1ac7e55840cfe639ecf4b11dafaf03aa04ee92fd19e6f871f32a3a63fe}. Off the 18 successful contenders in 2014, three were women.

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