CoA makes up three women in recent justice appointments

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Three female judges have been appointed to the Court of Appeal (CoA) in the latest round of promotions, which has seen 10 new justices appointed.

The promotions, as made by the Queen, include Mrs Justice Gloster, Macur and Sharp, and take the total number of CoA judges to seven from four.

Gloster J was appointed to the High Court in 2004, while Sharp J spent just four years on the High Court bench before her promotion to the CoA. Macur J joins from the Midland Circuit, where she was the presiding judge.

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Diversity – Bridging the Gap

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Scan the figures from this year’s Legal Business 100 survey and it seems that little has changed when it comes to gender diversity in the non-equity and equity partner ranks. Of the 7,376 equity partners across the UK’s 100 largest law firms by revenue, in 2010/11 just 17% of all equity partners are female. Similarly, just 23% of the 13,317 total partners are female.

This statistic has hardly altered in the last six years. In 2005, information gathered for the LB100 showed that just 15% of equity partners were women. After the numbers were crunched, it meant on average nine out of 66 equity partners were female.

But go back another 20 years, and this number is a significant improvement from the days when only 20 women made it into the equity at the ten largest City firms combined.

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Leading ladies

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Positive discrimination for men? Only in Turkey. Legal Business analyses a legal market where female commercial lawyers almost always top the class

The UK’s legal market has never been an easy place for female lawyers. This became abundantly clear in the 2009 LB100, which charts the UK’s top 100 law firms by revenue. Among these firms only 22% of the partners and 17% of the equity partners are female. Given that the overall percentage of female lawyers is 47%, it is hardly encouraging to see that only 37% of those promoted to partner in 2008/09 were women. These statistics do not make good reading for young British female associates, particularly if they are working at one of the Major City or Global Elite firms, where the percentage of female partners is 18% and 16% respectively. Continue reading “Leading ladies”