Gender Equality

The collapse of the Northern Ireland Executive two years ago has held back efforts to improve gender diversity within the legal profession, barristers have told Irish Legal News. There have been no QC appointments in Northern Ireland in almost five years, and no appointments can currently take place

Diversity in the legal profession is declining because fewer state-educated pupils are going into law than in the past, according to Cherie Blair QC. Social and economic diversity have been greater problems in law than gender, the wife of former prime minister Tony Blair said.

Leading members of the judiciary and legal profession came together to discuss diversity in legal representation after a Belfast screening of RBG, a new documentary on the life and work of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the US Supreme Court.