Gender battle erupts at the Bar

Female barristers have hit back at claims by Jeffrey Phillips SC that the NSW Bar Council’s positive discrimination policy is ‘the confected rage of the affluent’.

Picture: istock

Female barristers have hit back at claims by Jeffrey Phillips SC that the NSW Bar Council’s positive discrimination policy is “the confected rage of the affluent … that is, welfare or subsidies for those who don’t need it”.

Women Barristers Forum chair Naomi Sharp SC accused Mr Phillips of “sloganeering ­rather than something that is justified by any evidence” and displaying a lack of scrutiny in what is still a male-dominated profession.

Pointing out that only 25 per cent of NSW barristers are women, and only 14 per cent silks, Ms Sharp observes in this weekend’s Inquirer: “These figures do not scream out equality to me.”

Mr Phillips’ principle argument is with the NSW Bar Council’s equitable briefing policy, which aims to ensure that female barristers gain 30 per cent of all legal briefs.

As a member of the 2015 Bar Council, Mr Phillips voted against the policy, which he describes as “an Orwellian phrase that could more accurately be called the Briefing More Women Policy”.

In last weekend’s Inquirer, Mr Phillips claimed the policy disproportionately benefited well-connected women: those who went to the best schools, attended the best universities, and worked at the big law firms.

“The affluent and privileged become more so, as opposed to those women and other groups, smart though they are, who come from more disadvantaged backgrounds,” he said.

“This confected rage of the ­affluent based on self-reported victimhood is the basis for a form of rent-seeking. That is, welfare or subsidies for those who don’t need it. Positive discrimination and gaming the system for the wealthy seems obscene.”

However, Ms Sharp said the policy was intended to drive cultural change and address the significant pay gap and under-representation of women in the superior courts.

“The idea really is that things have not started from a level playing field and that is the reason there needs to be interventions,” she said. “Women have not been welcomed at the Bar, and that’s the essential problem.”

It was only one or two generations ago that chambers regularly refused to license rooms to woman to permit them to practise at the Bar at all, she said. “The Bar has really made some great gains in recent years in promoting equality and becoming a more welcoming place for women.”

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