Women’s History Month 2023 at Chambers

The month honours the rights of women that have been fought for across the globe. As well as giving us an opportunity to celebrate and reflect on the achievements of women in the past, it also gives us the time to discuss what more needs to be done and how we can work toward further change in the future. 

The IWD’s campaign theme this year is #EmbraceEquity and revolves around getting the world talking about why equal opportunities aren’t enough - it takes equitable action to bring about true inclusion and belonging.  

On Wednesday 8^th March Chambers INSPIRE Gender Diversity strand was delighted to host an event with Coral Hill, Founder and Editor of Legal Women UK. Attendees discussed equality, diversity, inclusion and the difference between gender equality and gender equity with Coral.  

We will be continuing our Women’s History Month celebrations with an event organised by our INSPIRE Gender and Neurodiversity teams. We will be talking to Reena Parmar, Senior Knowledge Lawyer, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer about the intersections of gender, ethnicity, neurodiversity, and disability.

Over the past five years the number of women ranked in our guides has been steadily increasing year on year. The total number of women ranked across our guides in 2022 shows a 36.5% increase on the 2018 figure.   

The number of women ranked in the UK has grown by 5% on average each year since 2018. With the USA growing by over 10% on average each year. 

We are not only seeing positive development in our larger guides. Our smaller guides are also showing steady growth. 13.5% more women were ranked in the High Net Worth guide in 2022 than in 2021. 

The Chambers Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) programme has been raising awareness of equity, diversity and inclusion for over 10 years now. Originally launched in 2012 as Chambers Women in Law, the aim was to shine a light on diversity best practice in the global legal profession, sharing insights and building a network of firms and individuals working towards common goals. 

Initially the programme focused on collaboration with the legal market, running seminars and awards, initially in the USA but soon expanding to Latin America and beyond, as well as creating diversity thought leadership content. The programme grew rapidly as law firms increasingly focused and achieved success, and in 2015 we expanded to become Chambers Diversity and Inclusion. 

Since then, we have held our first events in Europe and the UK, and now have awards in all of the key regions Chambers covers. Significantly, we also expanded our remit to internal D&I work.

The launch of INSPIRE, our internal D&I and Responsible Business Committee, was a significant moment in this development, with working groups made up of Executive Sponsors and colleagues from across the company driving change through awareness raising, providing a sounding board for different diverse communities and ensuring our culture continuously becomes more inclusive.

The D&I team also carries out a range of different training and advisory activities, as well as integrating D&I into our research to ensure that our rankings are truly reflective of the diversity and talent.

Tim Noble, CEO at Chambers and Partners, said: