Pledge encourages equal representation among expert witnesses

[IN A PREVIOUS ISSUE of Your Expert Witness we reported on the move by the Expert Witness Institute to sign up to the ERE Pledge. The Equal Representation for Expert Witnesses (ERE) initiative was conceived in 2021. Its purpose is to bring and drive commitment to improve the visibility and representation of women as expert witnesses.

The ERE Pledge has been created to be a sister pledge to the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge, which has been highly effective since its inception in 2015 in calling for – and seeing – an increased proportion of women appointed as arbitrators.

The Pledge aims to encourage action and advocacy to:

• Increase, on an equal opportunity basis, the number of women

• appearing as experts in order to achieve proportional representation

• and, eventually, full parity.

• Support hiring, mentoring and promoting women experts.

• Create a coalition of supporters and advocates in the world of

• dispute resolution.

• Encourage women to aspire to be expert witnesses in their

• chosen professions.

• Give women who are, or aspire to be, expert witnesses better

• opportunities to achieve their goals.

• Widen the pool of expert witnesses available and enhance the

• reputation of expert witnesses.

The ERE Pledge seeks to address the challenges faced by women who work, or aspire to work, as expert witnesses in all forms of dispute resolution globally. It was initiated by Kathryn Britten, a chartered accountant and managing director of global consulting firm AlixPartners, with American colleague Isabel Santos Kunsman.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph she said: “We felt we had to do something about this, as the proportion of appointed expert witnesses [who] are women is really shocking,”

At the time of writing the Pledge had 972 signatories, both individual and corporate. To find out more and sign the Pledge, visit the website at www.expertwitnesspledge.com/take-the-pledge q