Thread by @EssexBarrister

New BSB research on income at the bar by gender and ethnicity.

Female barristers from minority ethnic backgrounds being the lowest earning group and white male barristers being the highest earning group.

barstandardsboard.org.uk/resources/new-…

Chambers MUST monitor work allocation. In my opinion it should be a compulsory to do so.

Make sure the women, particularly the ethnic minority women, are getting a fair share of the unallocated junior briefs that are coming into chambers, or the reallocated ones.

Marketing MUST be fair. Make sure that you’re not just organising ‘boys club’ events involving a group of (mostly) men entertaining solicitors at sporting events/ drinking events... which are much harder for people to attend when they have families/ caring responsibilities.

Stop treating E&D like a tick box exercise. Every head of chambers should sit on the E&D committee. There should be a mix of senior and junior barristers. They should be meeting regularly with management committee and their views should be taken seriously.

There needs to be MUCH more effort from chancery/ commercial/ etc sets to improve diversity. Why are some of these sets still ALL white? And if not, why are there often NO black barristers?

But even most mixed sets or family/ crime sets aren’t looking representative yet.

Why are a few chambers doing all the diversity work for others?

More importantly, why are only a few barristers doing all the diversity work for others?

As a profession we need to fix up. This is appalling and we need to address this sooner rather than later.

Thank you @TwoCompBlog for flagging this report to me.

Most importantly perhaps is that this already accounts for seniority, geography and area of law.

White male barristers are being paid the most.

Ethnic minority female barristers are being paid the least.