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IWD Campaign 2025 Featurette- Former Female Presidents of The Law Society of England and Wales
Christina Blacklaws-President of The Law Society of England and Wales (2018-2019)
This years’ theme “Accelerate Action for women’s equality” emphasises on the importance of taking swift and decisive steps to achieve gender equality. It calls for increased momentum and urgency in addressing the systemic barriers and biases that women face, both in personal and professional spheres.
During your tenure as Law Society President;
One of your presidential themes was “women in leadership in law”
What systemic barriers and biases did you encounter that specifically impacted women in the Legal sector?
We undertook the largest ever global campaign and research, engaging with over 13,000 lawyers worldwide, to understand the barriers to women reaching their potential in the legal profession. Systemic bias was the main reason why women were being held back from fulfilling their potential.
All across the world, and at every stage of a woman’s career, there were barriers which led to women not uniformly occupying leadership roles commensurate with their wishes, qualifications, experience and numbers.
What are some of the feasible ways in which you were able to address these systemic barriers and biases?
(For example, implementing or shaping policy that positively impacts women’s advancement?)
We compiled 3 reports and distilled all that we learned into the Women in Law Pledge which was supported by the UK Government and all the legal representative bodies in the UK.
Signatories to the Pledge commit to work together to address gender inequality. This includes tackling discrimination, bullying and harassment in the workplace, challenging the gender pay gap in our organisations, appointing a senior and accountable champion, addressing discriminatory workplace cultures and publishing targets and action plans. It’s all about accountability!
What role do you think the Law Society (as an Independent professional body for solicitors in England and Wales) plays in effecting actual change with regards to female solicitors?
I firmly believe that the Law Society must continue to play a leading role in supporting the profession to effect genuine, sustainable change to ensure gender balance in the leadership positions in our profession.
There’s a long was to go but the Law Society has a huge part to play in helping us all get there.
What role do you think the implementation of the SQE as a route to qualification plays in advancing women’s professional progress in the legal sector?
It’s still early days in terms of the data and so it’s difficult to assess. However, my hope is that having diverse routes into the profession will broaden access and enable women, particularly from minoritised and under- represented groups to qualify, in their own way and in their own time, as solicitors and then succeed in the profession.
According to data from the World Economic Forum, at the current rate of progress, it will take 134 years, which is roughly five generations from now, to reach full gender parity in 2158. What resources do you think organisations should be allocating to “accelerate action” for women and girls?
That’s such a depressing statistic and frankly, it makes me so angry!
I believe it is an absolute imperative for law firms and legal departments to put the issue of gender balance at the forefront of their strategy. It’s makes pure business sense to do this. If women are the vast majority of the entrants and the talent pool, then businesses must design their attraction, retention and promotion structures around this fact.
They don’t, with some honourable exceptions, but without that focus, the profession will continue to haemorrhage female talent and will be much the worse off for it.
Let’s all start making some more noise about this!
As an Individual, what are the steps you take in your sphere of influence to “accelerate action” and positively impact women’s advancement?
I will ramp up my activity, using whatever platforms I have, to influence and engage key stakeholders and decision makers to bring about positive and lasting change in this area.
Christina Blacklaws
Chief Executive Officer, Blacklaws Consulting
https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinablacklaws/
March 2025
Interviewed by Charity Mafuba
Commissioning Editor,
Solicitor -England and Wales, New York Attorney