Gender Equality at the Top: seeking parity across the board for women in the legal profession
Overview
An ambitious new global project to study the lack of gender parity at the most senior levels of the legal profession. The first-of-its-kind, nine-year study will identify barriers and track progress of achieving equal representation of women in the highest levels of private practice, in-house positions, the public sector, and the judiciary.
The International Bar Association and LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation are collaborating on an ambitious global research project on gender equality in the legal profession. This study will focus on the number of senior women across private, public, judicial and in-house legal sectors in 16 jurisdictions. The aim of this project is to identify the statistical disparity between men and women at senior levels in the legal profession on a global scale, and identify whether diversity 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 longitudinal 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 Bar, government, public prosecution, in-house lawyers and the judiciary. Data will be collected every three years, over a nine-year period. The study will go beyond simply identifying challenges faced by women practitioners; determining what measures and initiatives are being enacted by the profession; and tracking whether they are having an any meaningful impact upon the proportion of women lawyers in positions of seniority.
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 50:50 by 2030 project to date following the publication of reports across 11 jurisdictions.
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 Gender in the Legal Profession Project: Phase 2
The IBA’s project aims to explore the lack of gender parity across all levels of the legal profession, with a focus on those in senior positions. Phase 2 of the project comprises a global survey seeking views from women lawyers, 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.
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
Watch the event - 3 Dec 2024
Opening remarks and report presentation
Panel 1
Panel 2
Reports
Women 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.
Read more
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 study