Mentoring for women barristers would help to overcome the “testosterone overdose” in the Bar and judiciary, argues QC

An “overdose of testosterone” is driving talented women barristers to leave the Bar, leading barrister Lord Pannick QC has warned.

Writing in The Times, Pannick sharply criticised male colleagues at the Bar and in the judiciary for the persistence of a culture in which women colleagues can be harassed and belittled. “Female students are deterred from joining the Bar when they hear about allegations of harassment and bullying,” he said. “The perception that the robing room still retains some of the less pleasant characteristics of a changing room after a men’s rugby match inevitably has an adverse effect on career choices. This is enormously damaging to the substantial efforts that the Bar and senior judges have been making to produce a more diverse legal profession and judiciary.”

He echoed the comments of criminal barrister Joanna Hardy, who recently spoke out about male colleagues behaving as if they are “on a stag do” and communicating with women colleagues “solely through innuendo”.

Pannick said that women who allege wrongdoing, as well as men who witness it, should be encouraged to complain and accommodated in a better way, and suggested that the Bar Council should “create a mentoring panel of senior women barristers, and if the lord chief justice were to set up a similar panel of senior women judges, to advise aggrieved women counsel.”

The Bar Council has since responded to Pannick’s calls, insisting that its “Equality & Diversity Committee is supported by a Retention Panel, specifically aimed at assisting women, comprising male and female barristers of a range of levels of seniority and practice areas. The Bar Council has also worked closely with the Bar Standards Board to make it easier for members of the Bar to discuss incidents of harassment through a reporting waiver scheme.” It also announced plans to set up further women’s forums on the regional circuits.