Leeds has come bottom of a table for gender diversity in legal profession

Chambers’ research shows significant regional variations in the increase in numbers of ranked female solicitors over the last decade.A ranked solicitor is a solicitor who Chambers has analysed and published in its annual rankings of the best lawyers in the UK.A spokesman said: “Leeds has been announced as the worst performing city out of 11 of the UK’s major cities, with only a 5.7 per cent rise in female solicitors compared with 2010, grouping it with Manchester and London as the three worst performing UK cities ranked in the latest Chambers data.The spokesman added: “This is compared to an 8.3 per cent rise across the UK throughout the legal industry, meaning Leeds is below the UK average.“Liverpool has topped the list of regional cities with a 16.4 per cent increase in female solicitors in 10 years followed by Glasgow (12.9 per cent), Belfast (12.2 per cent) and Cardiff (11.4 per cent), while Manchester (6.9 per cent) and London (6.2 per cent) have also significantly underperformed.”In Leeds, there are currently 119 ranked female lawyers, which is 29.2 per cent of the total ranked lawyers in the city. In 2010, there were 78 ranked females lawyers, which was 23.5 per cent of the city’s total number of ranked lawyers. Michael Perkin, Editor, Chambers UK, said: “In-house legal teams have told us that they want to see diversity among their work teams, and are particularly focused on mentoring of younger lawyers.“Whilst the practice areas of law for education, family and charity have traditionally had the highest number of female legal professionals, the 2020 data also shows that the number of women practicing in banking and finance and construction law has also increased.Mr Perkin added: “The total number of solicitors ranked for the 2020 report was 10,883 with a 30.6 per cent vs 69.4 per cent female to male ratio. The total number of barristers ranked was 7,409, with a 23.6 per cent vs 76.4 per cent female to male ratio.”