Profiling the diversity of the judicial talent pipeline

Further progress is needed to improve the diversity of the judiciary in England and Wales. In November 2023, on behalf of the Judicial Diversity Forum and with funding from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the Legal Services Board (LSB) commissioned SQW to profile the diversity of the judicial talent pipeline. This research focused on mapping, analysing and visualising secondary data (including from individual legal regulators) about diversity at different stages of the judicial pipeline. The LSB is an independent body that oversees regulators of the reserved legal activities in England and Wales.

The resulting report, published in August 2024 by the LSB, identifies where people ‘fall off’ the pipeline whose sustained inclusion would increase the judiciary’s diversity. The report also highlights, a), where further data is needed to form a more complete picture of the pipeline and, b), where the legal services regulators, Judicial Diversity Forum members and other stakeholders might best focus interventions to increase the diversity of the pipeline.

We found:

  • Senior barristers and senior solicitors alike are more likely to be male, while barristers are more likely than solicitors to be recommended for judicial posts
  • Legal professionals who are female and from an ethnic minority are significantly less likely to become KCs, white men dominate barristers’ and solicitors’ senior ranks, and current judges are more likely to be white men
  • Ethnic minorities, which are generally underrepresented among judges, are overrepresented among judicial applicants but are less likely to be shortlisted and recommended than white applicants
  • Lawyers who attended fee-paying and independent schools are more likely than state school alumni to be shortlisted and recommended for the judiciary.

In addition to creating the written report including visual data summaries, SQW presented the report’s headline findings and recommendations to the Judicial Diversity Forum in summer 2024. Lots of work is already underway to address these issues. You can read our research and more about initiatives seeking to address imbalances in representation on the LSB's website, here.

For further details about the research please contact Will Millard at SQW, via WMillard@sqw.co.uk.