Legal landmark as women solicitors outnumber men for the first time

THE number of women working as solicitors has for the first time overtaken the amount of men, figures showed yesterday.

There were 69,995 women qualified to practise as solicitors – the biggest branch of the legal profession – last summer, according to their professional association.

It meant that there were 366 more women solicitors than men in England and Wales.

The landmark was reached 98 years after women were first allowed to practise following the First World War, and 95 years after the first four women passed qualifying exams.

The share of women working as solicitors has been rising fast for the past two decades. More women than men have been entering the profession since the 1990s. Over the same period, the ranks of the legal profession as a whole have been increasing steadily. Qualified solicitors numbered 139,624 at the end of July last year, up by nearly 10,000 in just four years, their professional body the Law Society said.

Their ranks overtook numbers of police officers in England and Wales in 2014, when there were 130,382 solicitors compared to 128,346 police officers. Last year there were 123,507 police officers. Law Society President Joe Egan said: ‘With more women than men and a steadily growing proportion of solicitors from a black, Asian and minority ethnic background, it is more important than ever the profession recognises and rewards talent equally.’

Christina Blacklaws, who takes over from Mr Egan next month, said: ‘While more and more women are becoming lawyers, this shift is not yet reflected at more senior levels in the profession.’ Fewer than a third of partners in law firms are female.

Female solicitors are on average younger than men, aged 40 versus 45. And women still lag behind men at the elite level. Last year there were 10,181 male barristers, 5,792 female barristers, and 32 who preferred not to say, according to the Bar Council.