The Association of Women Barristers is celebrating its tenth anniversary. The AWB was founded in 1991 by three women from common law chambers in the Temple, following a meeting attended amongst others by Helena Kennedy QC (now Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws) and Mary Arden QC (now Lady Justice Arden), who on her appointment to the High Court Bench in 1994 became the first President. Membership is now over 500, and boasts a broad range of practitioners and links with influential bodies. The current President is Lady Justice Hale, while Vice-Presidents include Lady Lowry QC (who as Barbara Calvert founded the first set of Chambers to be headed by a woman), Judge Rosalyn Higgins DBE of the International Court of Justice, Cherie Booth QC and Susan Ward, Vice President of BACFI and Chair of the Bar Council Employed Barristers Committee. A former Chairwoman and Vice-President was Barbara Hewson, The Lawyer Barrister of the Year in 1998. The present officers include a barrister/academic (the current Chair), a Chancery barrister/arbitrator (the Vice Chair), an Immigration Adjudicator (the Secretary) and an employed barrister (the Treasurer), and the Committee includes representatives of the common law Bar (two women in practice in the Temple), the Government Legal Service, the Bar Association for Commerce Finance and Industry and the Bar Pupil Group. Links have been formed with the South Eastern, Midland and Wales and Chester Circuits, and with the Fawcett Society, the Women in Legal Education Network, the Society of Public Teachers of Law and the Editorial Board of Feminist Legal Studies at the University of Kent. Membership has always been divided between common law and Chancery barristers, and Government and employed lawyers - two women from a Law Centre were amongst the founders - so that the constitution, which was based on that of the Association of Women Solicitors, has broad objects. The overall emphasis was and remains a sense among women that not enough is being done for women barristers and that they need a higher profile for the discrete issues which concern them. The Bar Council, unlike the Law Society, still has no seat to represent the interests of women practitioners, although three committee members sit on the Sex Discrimination Committee. The AWB provides supportive and informative seminars, a mentoring scheme and helpline. It publishes research projects and organises a high profile Annual Dinner attended by the judiciary and leaders of the profession. In the near future the AWB Committee for 2001-2 plans a new website. This will include an e-mail discussion group to keep women barristers swiftly in touch with one another and with the Committee Frances Burton: Chairwoman AWB Contact Frances Burton (Chairwoman), 10 Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, London WC2A 3SU; DX 306; tel: 07775 655088; e-mail kdd00@dial.pipex.com; or Julian Bradley, AWB Administrator,Bar Council, 2-3 Cursitor Street, EC4A 1NE; DX 240; tel 020 7242 1289 |
