Guildhall Chambers

We are committed to the values of Equality, Diversity & Inclusivity across all aspects of Chambers and Chambers life. We have two ED&I offices who are both highly motivated in bringing forward new ideas and ways to further enhance our ways of working in order to underpin these values, not just within our policies, but also our ethos.

We have recently arranged talks to members and discussion sessions about E&D in the workplace with a view to discussing ways in which any discrimination can best be addressed. Further, in order to ensure awareness across the clerking teams, specific training with a particular focus on Unconscious Bias has been undertaken. We closely monitor allocation of work, and we ensure that practice review meetings are focussed around the desires of the individuals so that we can best support each and every member to fulfil their aspirations.

We have promised transparent commitment to change by pledging our support the Bar Council’s Women in Law programme, for the progression of women into senior roles, with a focus on retention and development opportunities to aid true gender equality.

The Women in Law programme requires chambers to agree a number of pledges, which are practical steps towards furthering gender equality. We have prepared a number of pledges, which we will review and assess for progress in the 12 months.

During the course of the year, our clerking and staff teams have undergone several training courses including fair allocation of work, led by our EDI representatives, Jenny Tallentire & Debbie Grennan. This is an ongoing process. Our senior clerks attended the Bar Council’s Race Awareness training, and since this we have attended a number if virtual events on the subject of race awareness at the Bar.

Our EDI officers have recently had a specific focus on the retention of women in chambers, particularly in the first few years of practice. They have prepared a detailed reports with a number of recommendations that was approved by our management committee.

Selena Plowden QC is an active member of the Western Circuit Women’s Forum and Kriti Upadhyay is involved in the activities of the Women Lawyers Division (Bristol). We already have a near equal proportion of women to men in the clerks room.

Here are a few highlights of what we will be focussing on over the next 12 months:

a) Completing the latest gender pay review and reporting our findings to Guildhall’s Management Committee for consideration;

b) Putting into place the recommendations of our earlier report supporting members of chambers to deliver and access the support required and devising a suitable system for assessing the effectiveness of these measures;

c) Conducting regular workshops for junior tenants, pupils and pupil supervisors, addressing the challenges of the early years of practice and providing an open forum for discussion about the challenges individuals may face.

d) Implementing Chambers’ Race Awareness Action Plan and rolling out the Race Awareness training more widely;