Marilyn Stowe: Our sisters in law giving diversity a helping hand on International Women's Day

TODAY is International Women's Day. Marked in a range of countries around the world, the day actually began life a century ago as a specifically socialist event, but it has now mostly shed its political baggage and become purely about celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women.
Marilyn Stowe who has overcome a male-dominated legal profession to reach the top in family law.Marilyn Stowe who has overcome a male-dominated legal profession to reach the top in family law.
Marilyn Stowe who has overcome a male-dominated legal profession to reach the top in family law.

So let’s talk a little about the women’s achievements in the law. Over the course of my career, I have watched law gradually metamorphose from the proverbial old boys’ club to into an increasingly female friendly vocation.

Of course sexism lingers on in certain areas – it would be foolish to deny that reality – but on the whole, despite many choosing to have children, women do much better in law these days. This fact is reflected in the sheer numbers of bright young women reading law at university and going on to enter the legal profession.

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Others may take a different view. Perhaps – I have to admit this – my view has been a little coloured by the fact that I and my firm specialise in family law, and that is the one legal field in which women do tend to dominate. The best- known family lawyers in this country are all women. Our professional team at Stowe Family Law is also roughly two thirds female. When I first began my professional career, I was the only woman in an otherwise all male firm.

The upper echelons of the law move more slowly than those lower down, as you might expect, and a diversity that would reflect the social realities of 21st century is still some way off. The most senior judges are still overwhelmingly privately-educated white males.

Last year Supreme Court Justice Lord Sumption caused something of a stir by claiming: “You’ve got to be patient. The change in the status and achievements of women in our society, not just in the law but generally, is an enormous cultural change that has happened over the last 50 years or so.”

He insisted: “It has to happen naturally. It will happen naturally. But in the history of a society like ours, 50 years is a very short time.”

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Like almost all his colleagues, Lord Sumption is a former high-flying barrister. He claimed that more women than men drop out before reaching the upper ranks thanks to the long working hours and demanding working conditions. But the law is nevertheless a delicate ecosystem which would be thoroughly upset by attempts to engineer the gender balance, he claimed.

His Lordship added: “We have got to be very careful not to do things at a speed which will make male candidates feel that the cards are stacked against them. If we do that we will find that male candidates don’t apply in the right numbers. Eighty-five per cent of newly appointed judges in France are women, because the men stay away. Eighty-five per cent women is just as bad as 85 per cent men.”

His comments, with their implication that it could be another 50 years before we see a truly diverse senior judiciary, predictably didn’t go down well with many in the legal world. And his Supreme Court colleague, the redoubtable Lady Hale, has spoken of her unhappiness at the continuing predominance of privately-educated white men in the corridors of law.

In a lecture delivered in 2013, Lady Hale was forthright on the topic, noting that with a judiciary that is just 23 per cent female, England is way below the global average of 48 per cent.

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She returned to the theme in another lecture, on the topic of appointments to the Supreme Court delivered in November last year.

Here Her Ladyship noted that there have been 13 legal appointments to the House of Lords and its legal successor the Supreme Court since she herself became a ‘Lord of Appeal in Ordinary’ in 2004 – ie a law lord (and yes, that is the correct term, despite her gender).

She added: “All of those 13 appointments were men. All were white. All but two went to independent fee-paying schools. All but three went to boys’ boarding schools. All but two went to Oxford or Cambridge.

“All were successful QCs in private practice, although one was a solicitor rather than a barrister.”

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Meanwhile, women have a growing presence within the High Court. In December last year, a total of 109 judges had been appointed to its three branches: 19 within the Family Division, 18 within the Chancery Division, and a full 71 within the Queen’s Bench Division. Of that 109, a total of 23 – or about one fifth – were women.

Two – Dame Vivian Rose and Dame Ingrid Simler – hold senior positions within the tribunal system, courts which focus on specialist issues such as tax or employment disputes.

So it would seem we have a long way to go to achieve parity. But I am optimistic. Our senior judges are largely in their 60s and 70s now. They qualified and practised in a different era and the world does not stand still.

In a few decades some of those
women now cutting a dash as young lawyers will start to reach the top of the tree and that is the day we will achieve a truly diverse judiciary. I do agree with Lord Sumption’s claim that social change takes time. Sometimes all you can do is be patient.

Marilyn Stowe, from Harrogate, is the senior partner at Stowe Family Law, the UK’s largest standalone family law firm.