Justice is blind. But is it education blind? Kathryn Davies and Philip Kirby on social mobility in the UK legal profession.

Several years ago, the Sutton Trust analysed the educational backgrounds of the UK’s top judges. In 1989, three quarters (76%) of them had gone to private schools. By 2004, this figure had lowered – but only by a single percentage point (75%). And our new research published today with Prime shows, it has dropped still further – but only by another percentage point (74%). The judiciary remains almost as dominated by private school alumni today as it was decades ago.

So, how does the rest of the legal profession look? Almost the same proportion of former private school students is to be found amongst the nation’s top barristers. Of Chambers UK’s top 100 QCs, 71% were educated at private schools. At top law firms (‘magic circle’), about 50% of partners attended private schools. Bearing in mind that just 7% of students are educated privately each year nationally, it’s a major imbalance.

But, there have been signs that the profession is starting to address the issue. In 2006, the Judicial Appointments Commission was founded. Ending the secretive closed-door policies that used to be in effect, it appoints judges more transparently and with special attention paid to fostering diversity amongst the judicial ranks. Since it was instituted, appointments from state school backgrounds have become (slightly) more common.

Under the guidance of the Solicitors Regulation Authority, law firms now provide a large amount of public data on the diversity of their workforces, too; including the schools that their employees attended, disaggregated by seniority (We’ve drawn on this data for our research).

Just publishing this data is not enough, of course: it alerts us to the problem, but not how the situation might be changed. Solutions can come in many forms and the Sutton Trust has pioneered a programme, Pathways to Law, which aims to increase the representation of those from disadvantaged backgrounds in the legal profession. This programme, which has already helped 2,000 students, has been generously supported by the Legal Education Foundation and leading law firms and focuses on those students interested in a legal career.

Pathways to Law aims to remove barriers to the legal profession by working with students over a two-year period to increase their understanding of the sector, improve their soft skills, and support their application to a top university.  Students attend regular sessions at their host university, covering both the academic subject of law and the various routes into it as career, and are also given a work experience placement at a local or national law firm, chambers or in-house team.

Since its inception in 2007, over 2,000 students have taken part in the programme, which now runs in 12 partner universities across the country. Tracking data shows that 60% of the students go on to read Law at university, and that 73% are gaining places at Russell Group institutions, up from 57% when the programme first launched, with around 18% going on to establish a legal career.

And today’s report is published with Prime, an alliance of 89 law firms and legal departments who offer good quality work experience to young people, in an effort to broaden access to the legal profession. They’ve already helped 4,000 young people.

We’re making progress, but more work needs to be done to ensure that the legal profession is representative of the people that it serves.

Kathryn Davies is Programmes Manager and Dr Philip Kirby is Research Fellow at the Sutton Trust.

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