The Federal Court’s newest judge, Jane Needham, SC, blasted the “painfully slow” progress of women in law and urged barristers to consider briefing, “that young woman who went to a school you haven’t heard of”.

At a rousing welcome ceremony in Sydney on Friday, Justice Needham noted that while more than 50 per cent of solicitors were women, only 15 per cent of senior counsel in NSW – and 26 per cent of the Bar – were women. “That is not enough.”