IBA Raising the Bar: Women in Law
Overview
An ambitious global project running since 2021 examining women’s representation across all levels, including the most senior, of the legal profession. The first-of-its-kind, multi-year study will review gender parity in the highest levels of private practice, in-house positions, the public sector and the judiciary, as well as seek to understand women’s experiences working in the law, with the aim of raising awareness and providing recommendations to move forward.
The ‘Raising the Bar: Women in Law’ project is the International Bar Association’s ambitious global research project on gender parity in the legal profession, focusing on women’s representation. Phase 1 of the project will focus on the number of senior women across private, public, judicial and in-house legal sectors in 16 jurisdictions. Phase 2 of the project will focus on women’s experiences working in the profession to understand what is and isn’t working for women in the law.
The aim of this project is to identify the statistical disparity between men and women at all levels, with a focus on senior positions, in the legal profession on a global scale, and identify whether workplace initiatives introduced to address this disparity are having any impact.
Current research shows that females make up the majority of law students and graduates globally, but this is not reflected in the statistics of those working at senior levels, across all legal sectors, where women still constitute a far smaller proportion than their male counterparts. The project seeks to understand and address this gap via a multi-year study, and provide practical conclusions and guidance to the global legal profession.
While previous studies have focused primarily on commercial law firms, where data and willingness to participate have been prevalent, the IBA study will be the first to provide global data from law firms, the public sector, in-house lawyers, the judiciary, and where relevant, barristers and advocates.
In March 2022, the first of the project’s reports was released on England and Wales. Reports on Uganda and Spain followed later that year. The report on Nigeria was released on International Women's Day 2023, followed by the Netherlands and Chile later that year. A case study on Nepal was released at the start of 2024, the report on the Republic of Korea was published in April, and the Brazil report followed in August 2024. The Mexico report was released at the annual conference in September, followed by Ukraine and Türkiye at the end of 2024. In December 2024 a Progress Report was published, setting out the key findings from the project to date following the publication of reports across 11 jurisdictions. The Taiwan report was released in early 2025. Reports on Australia, Canada, South Africa and India are underway.
The project is being led by IBA’s Legal Policy & Research Unit, Diversity & Inclusion Council, with support and input from the Women Lawyers' Committee.
If you would like to be involved in producing a case study on gender balance in the legal profession in your jurisdiction please contact:
sara.carnegie@int-bar.org
IBA Raising the Bar: Women in Law project – Phase 2
The IBA’s project aims to explore women’s representation across all levels of the legal profession, with a focus on those in senior positions. Phase 2 of the project comprised a global survey seeking views from women working in the law, as well as those who have recently left the profession, about a variety of topics, including:
- their experience as lawyers in the profession;
- initiatives available and their impact;
- barriers to practice;
- reasons for staying or leaving the profession;
- areas or sectors of practice;
- career satisfaction; and
- the impact of family or other caring responsibilities on their careers.
The survey closed in June 2025 and received over 5,500 responses from over 100 jurisdictions globally. Analysis of the data is currently underway and findings from the survey will be presented at the IBA’s Annual Conference in November 2025.
Despite good intentions, despite the merits and talent of so many women, we still don’t reach the most senior positions across the legal sector mainly due to discriminatory obstacles placed in our paths. This directly clashes with the principles defended by our profession. The legal sector cannot afford this contradiction and should lead by example. With the benefit of raised general awareness around discrimination, it is time for increased action. The IBA is committed to developing solutions that will bring about lasting change to reflect the broader profession and society as a whole.
Almudena Arpón de Mendívil
President 2023-2024, International Bar Association
A longitudinal study into gender disparity in law – Taiwan
A new report from the Legal Policy & Research Unit of the International Bar Association and the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation, in collaboration with the Taipei Bar Association, reveals that women in Taiwan make up 40 per cent of all lawyers. Across the profession, though parity is close to being achieved at junior levels, the majority of senior professionals across the sectors covered as part of the Taiwan report are male. Click on the below link to download a PDF of the report and read about other statistics relating to women lawyers in Taiwan’s legal profession. A longitudinal study into gender disparity in law – TAIWAN RESULTS REPORT is the 12th report in a series involving the study into gender disparity in the legal profession. The report is available in both English and Mandarin.
Featured videos and podcasts
Progress Report launch event - 3 December 2024
Opening remarks and report presentation
Panel 1
Panel 2
Reports
Complementary initiatives
Nepal: new case study on gender disparity and the impact of professional development training for women
A new case study on gender equality in the Nepalese legal profession, produced by DLA Piper’s nonprofit affiliate New Perimeter, has been released in collaboration with the IBA’s Gender Project. The report, International training of women lawyers in Nepal: A case study, focuses on the professional development training given to Nepalese female lawyers in 2015 and 2016, analyses its successes and lessons learnt, and includes interviews with both trainers and trainees. The training, delivered by New Perimeter alongside the Nepal Bar Association and other organisations, serves as an excellent example of how to shift the dial in gender equality in the legal profession through international collaboration. This case study complements the reports released by the IBA on gender disparity in the legal profession in England & Wales, Nigeria, Spain, The Netherlands and Uganda.
Download case studyWomen and Diversity in Law Awards
Congratulations to the Legal Policy & Research Unit and International Bar Association, who were the winners of two awards at the Women and Diversity in Law Awards, hosted on 13 March 2024.
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