Barristers from minority backgrounds face systemic obstacles in career, report says

A new report has revealed that Barristers from ethnic minority backgrounds in England and Wales face systemic obstacles to building and progressing a sustainable and rewarding career, The Guardian reported.

The race working group of the Bar Council, the profession’s representative body, has found out that barristers from minority backgrounds, particularly black and Asian women, are paid less and are at greater risk of bullying and harassment, the report added.

A black female junior barrister with the same level of experience as a white male junior bills £18,700 a year less on average, and an Asian woman £16,400 less, the report says.

It added that black and Asian women at the bar are four times more likely to experience bullying and harassment at work than white men.

According to the authors of the report, barristers from ethnic minority backgrounds are more likely to be referred to the regulator for disciplinary action.

They state that barristers from black, Asian and other ethnic minority backgrounds can feel “hypervisible, bullied, harassed and marginalised” at work, especially at court.

“Data in the report categorically and definitively evidences, in quantitative and qualitative terms, that barristers from all ethnic minority backgrounds, and especially black and Asian women, face systemic obstacles to building and progressing a sustainable and rewarding career at the bar," Barbara Mills QC and Simon Regis, co-chairs of the Bar Council race working group, was quoted as saying by the newspaper in a joint statement.

“Quite rightly, practising barristers within the profession have expressed frustration over the amount of talk about race inequality at the bar and the lack of action and failure to bring about change.”

Candidates from ethnic minority backgrounds were found to be less likely to obtain pupillage than candidates from white backgrounds, even when controlling for educational attainment.

At all levels, white male barristers earned the highest fee income, with black women earning the least.

In England and Wales, there are five black female QCs, 17 black male QCs, 17 female QCs of Asian ethnicity and 60 men of Asian ethnicity. There are also nine female and 16 male QCs of mixed/multiple ethnicity. By comparison there are 1,303 white men who are QCs and 286 white women, the report revealed.

A barrister has said that they have to get over the initial hurdles [of judgment and incorrect assumptions] before they can even start to do the job.

The report contains a number of recommendations including identification of goals for improving diversity within a fixed timescale and annual monitoring of data.

The Bar Council has committed to providing an annual update on actions taken against the recommendations as well as a comprehensive review in 2024.

“We should reflect honestly on whether long-held and perhaps defensive, assumptions about the bar can survive the evidence and data which the report draws together," Derek Sweeting QC, chair of the Bar Council, told The Guardian.

"The bar is, for most of its members, a modern profession in which hard work and talent offer individuals the opportunity to thrive and contribute to our justice system. That opportunity needs to be open to all.”