The Australian bar is going backwards. Shouldn’t there be more women silks,

22 Jun 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.

To read more, go to: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/08/the-australian-bar-is-going-backwards-shouldnt-there-be-more-women-silks,CMP=share_btn_link