LW Mission

LW Mission

Information | Inspiration | Innovation

Bottom L to R: Nicola Williams, Service Complaints Ombudsman Office of the Service Complaints Ombudsman for the Armed Forces; Rt Hon Lady Arden of Heswell DBE, Supreme Court Judge; Millicent Grant QC (Hon), Past President of CILEx. Top L to R: Christina Blacklaws, Past President Law Society for England and Wales; Amanda Pinto QC, Chair of the Bar of England and Wales at General Council, Master Karen Shuman, Master of the Chancery Division Chair of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity Steering Group, Lincoln’s Inn.

■ To provide clear information on gender parity

■ To inspire practical initiatives to create real change

■ To promote innovation in leadership and practice

LW magazine is for women qualified as lawyers, solicitors, barristers, advocates, judges, legal executives and those working as paralegals, legal secretaries, advisers or recruiters, the list is endless. We also welcome the many male champions as readers and contributors.

This inspirational photograph is from one of the highlights of the centenary celebrations for women being able to qualify, when Lincoln’s Inn hosted a discussion with female lawyers representing distinct legal careers: solicitor, CILEx, barrister, in-house counsel and judges. The evening showed how we all shared the same challenges by virtue of being female.

One of our regular writers, Helen Broadbridge explains ‘What Legal Women is Not’ Legal Women is a new quarterly publication for everyone interested in equality, diversity and inclusion. But here’s the sticking point: sometimes people see something with the word ‘women’ in the title and think that it is not for them. The writing team here at Legal Women would like to reassure you that this is most certainly not the case.

We hope that Legal Women will become a standard bearer for the benefits of gender balance in the workforce, in leadership and decision-making bodies. That is absolutely a conversation in which everyone should take part. To achieve gender balance will require incremental change and when change is involved no-one should be excluded from the process of data collection, analysis and policy-making.

If striving for gender balance remains a conversation between women alone, we will be less likely to reach those male leaders in whose hands the power to create change may lie. Worse, we could risk alienating 50% of the population from the cause. Therefore, we hope to develop the dialogue from a selfhelp conversation between women to an organisation-level conversation about how to understand gender data gaps and make a plan for what to do about them.

We want our conversation to be inclusive and persuasive, so please don’t see the word ‘women’ and think that means you are not welcome. Gender balance is not a “women’s” issue, but a business issue, and as far as you are interested in business issues, please read on. ■