Females make up just 20 per cent of honorary silk nominations
Just 20 per cent of the people nominated for the honorary QC title in the past three years were women, The Lawyer can reveal.
A second Freedom of Information request to the Ministry of Justice has found that a total of 81 people were nominated for the title between 2010 and 2012, with 62 men and 19 women put forward.
In the nomination period for the 2010 round, of the 22 people nominated for honorary silk, 17 were men and five were women. In 2011, out of 35 nominations, 28 were men and seven were women. In 2012, out of 24 nominations, 17 were men and seven were women.
As reported in The Lawyer last week, although 46 people were appointed honorary QCs between 2000 and 2012, only seven women made the cut during this period (12 March 2012).
In 2010, Professor Sarah Worthington was the only woman out of five people to be appointed honorary QC. Although no women were appointed in 2011, in 2012 things improved slightly when two females were given the nod, with Professor Dawn Oliver and Professor Sandra Fredman both being appointed honorary silks alongside Charles Dhanowa, Stephen Grosz and Michael Payton (29 February 2012).
See The Lawyer’s suggestions for female lawyers who would be worthy of consideration for next year’s honorary QC list here.
Readers' comments (3)
Anonymous | 20-Mar-2012 1:44 pm
More evidence that the system is flawed. But why have an honorary QC position anyway? What next? An honorary judge? An honorary politician?
I think we should we just stick to QC appointments on the basis of merit.
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Anonymous | 20-Mar-2012 4:28 pm
@ 1:44 pm: Honorary QC titles are given out on the basis of merit. People given the title are deemed to have earned it and are deemed to deserve it for the work they have done in a legal context. You are entitled to think they should not exist, but to imply that they are not given out on the basis of merit is misguided.
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Anonymous | 20-Mar-2012 5:05 pm
The majority of stats like these which purport to highlight discrimination are completely misleading (and meaningless without being placed in a proper context).
The reality is that you are only likely to be made an honorary QC if you have a fair few years behind you. Given that the ratio of men to women taking up a career in law (and many other professional occupations) in the 70s/80s was severely weighted towards men means that there will inevitably be far more men who meet the 'longevity' criteria today.
To suggest that honorary QC appointments should be evenly weighted between men and women would itself be discriminatory if a more deserving male candidate was overlooked in order to appoint a female so as to create gender balance.
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