Diversity of the judiciary 2020 statistics: report

Question 1

Main Points

Accepted Answer

This publication is based on data covering around 16,900 barristers, 148,300 solicitors and 8,100 Chartered Legal Executives^{[footnote 1]}, 37 selection exercises run by the JAC in 2019-20 (with 8,258 applicants and 959 recommendations for legal and non-legal roles) and 3,174 court judges and 1,826 tribunal judges in post as at 1 April 2020.

The main points in this section focus first on the make-up of the legal professions, followed by judicial selection exercises, and finally diversity of the current judiciary.

Gender (section 2)

Women are less well represented among the more experienced and more senior members of the legal professions	For those with over 15 years of legal experience - the average for those applying for judicial roles with a 5-year minimum - 32% of barristers, 43% of solicitors and 69% of Chartered Legal Executives were women, though currently few legal executives apply for judicial appointment.17% of Queens Counsel barristers and 32% of partner solicitors were women
Overall, there is no evidence of disparity for women for judicial selection exercises in 2019-20	Across all legal selection exercises run by JAC, women accounted for 50% of applicants, 45% of those shortlisted and 45% of those recommended for appointment. Comparing with the pool of eligible candidates, relative success rates for women were an estimated 4% lower than for men though there were variations by appointment
Women remain under-represented in the judiciary, particularly in courts	At 1 April 2020, 32% of court judges and 47% of tribunal judges were women. The proportion of women has increased in recent years, but remains lower in senior court appointments (26% for High Court and above).

Ethnicity (section 3)

BAME representation is lower for more experienced members of the legal professions	For those with over 15 years of legal experience, 14% of barristers, 12% of solicitors and 3% of Chartered Legal Executives identified as BAME. BAME individuals represented 9% of Queen’s Counsel (barristers) and 15% of partners (solicitors)
BAME individuals are over-represented in applications for judicial appointment, but less likely to be successful	Across all legal exercises, candidates identifying as BAME accounted for 25% of applicants, 14% of those shortlisted and 12% of those recommended for appointment. Overall, compared to the pool of eligible candidates, success rates for BAME candidates were an estimated 17% lower than for white candidates (not statistically significant)
The proportion of BAME individuals in the judiciary has increased but remains lower in senior court roles	8% of court judges and 12% of tribunal judges identified as BAME at 1 April 2020, an increase of 2 percentage points compared to 2014 in both cases. There is no clear pattern by seniority, though the proportion BAME is lower for senior court appointments (4% BAME for High Court and above) compared to others.

Professional background (section 5)

Representation of solicitors falls throughout the judicial selection process	Across all legal exercises combined, there was a higher representation of solicitors than barristers among applicants, though solicitors accounted for a smaller share of recommendations. Candidates who had ever been a solicitor accounted for 58% of applicants and 41% of those recommended for appointment.
Most court judges have a background as a barrister	Overall, 32% of court judges and 63% of tribunal judges were from non-barrister backgrounds (mostly solicitors). However in the more senior court posts (High Court and above) only 3% of current judges were non-barristers. In both courts and tribunals, the proportion with a non-barrister background has fallen compared to 2014.

Age (section 4) and other characteristics (section 6)

Most judges are aged 50 or over

76% of court judges and 72% of tribunal judges were aged 50 and over, with 40% aged 60 and over in both courts and tribunals. Across all legal selection exercises, those aged 50 and over accounted for 35% of applicants, 34% of those shortlisted and 29% of those recommended for appointment.

There is currently limited data on other protected characteristics

Currently, reliable statistics on disability, social mobility, sexual orientation and religion are only available for judicial appointments. These show, for example, that candidates with a disability had similar recommendation rates (from application) as non-disabled candidates, whereas candidates who attended a UK state school had lower recommendation rates that those who attended fee-paying schools.

Non-legal members of tribunals, and magistrates (section 7)

Compared with judges, a higher proportion of non-legal members and magistrates are women, or BAME

Across all tribunal non-legal members in post as at 1 April 2020, 52% were women, 16% were BAME and 85% were aged 50 and above. 56% of sitting magistrates were women, 13% were BAME and 82% were aged 50 and above

Question 2

Statistician’s Comment

Accepted Answer

These statistics present the latest data on diversity for current judicial office holders, for judicial selection and within the legal professions which provide the eligible pool of candidates for most judicial roles.

Although the proportion of judges that are women continues to increase gradually, women remain under-represented in judicial roles in 2020. This is particularly the case in the courts where 32% of all judges, and 26% of those in more senior roles (High Court and above) were women - compared with 47% of all judges in tribunals.

The proportion of judges who identify as Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) has also increased in recent years, but remains lower for court appointments compared to tribunals, particularly at senior levels (4% for High Court and above, compared with 8% of all court and 12% of all tribunal judges). However the association between age and ethnicity – with lower proportions BAME at older ages, and more senior judges being older on average – should be borne in mind.

For judicial selection exercises during 2019-20, these statistics show that overall there was no statistically significant difference in success rates for women or BAME candidates relative to the pool of eligible candidates, though this does vary between exercises. However, recommendation rates from application were significantly lower for solicitor applicants compared to barristers.

On average, applicants for judicial roles have far greater than the minimum levels of legal experience required. Within all three legal professions, gender and ethnic diversity decreases as experience and seniority increase.

Alongside figures for court and tribunal judges, this publication also covers non-legal members of tribunals and magistrates, where there is greater diversity in gender and ethnicity overall. In addition to the above characteristics this publication presents data on age, and, for judicial appointments, social mobility, disability, sexual orientation and religion, though further work is required to collect sufficiently robust data on these characteristics for the judiciary and the legal professions.

Question 3

Things you need to know

Accepted Answer

Overall

This publication sets out patterns and trends relating to judicial diversity, bringing together data on legal professions (which provide the pool from which the future judiciary are drawn), judicial appointments, and sitting judges and other post holders. It covers diversity at different stages of the path to judicial office, as summarised in the image below.

A key aim of this publication is to bring together data previously published separately into one place, to provide a comprehensive picture of the data available and evidence gaps.

Much of the diversity data included in this publication depends on voluntary self-declaration by legal profession members, judicial post applicants and judicial office holders. All percentages are calculated using the proportion of individuals where the characteristic is known. A characteristic is considered to be ‘unknown’ if an individual has asked for their data to not be shared further, has chosen ‘prefer not to say’, or has left the answer blank.

The minimum required declaration rate^{[footnote 2]} for this publication is 60%. Where this declaration rate has not been met, the data has not been included. As declaration rates improve, we hope to include more information in future releases. Further details are given in the background guidance note.

In this publication we refer to ethnicity data using the high-level categories of those who identify as White and those who identify as coming from a BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) background. The data tables in the annex provide a breakdown for the BAME groups for the legal professions and Judicial Office (JO). The breakdown is not provided for the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) due to the risk of disclosure from small numbers.

Legal professions

Data on the legal professions included in this publication^{[footnote 3]} is as at 1 April 2020, with definitions as follows:

Solicitors: all practising solicitors i.e. those who hold a practising certificate (PC).
Barristers: all practising barristers (those who hold a PC).
Chartered Legal Executives: all fellows of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) excluding students, affiliates, associates and graduates.

Definitions of Post Qualification Experience (PQE) for each profession included in this publication:

Solicitors: number of practising certificates held (rather than years since admission).
Barristers: years of practice (the number of years since an individual completed pupillage).
Chartered Legal Executives: based on years of experience for members who have achieved fellowship^{[footnote 4]}

Definitions of seniority^{[footnote 5]} for each profession included in this publication:

Solicitors: solicitors at the lower level and partner at the higher level. Partner includes owners and managers of law firms. There is no equivalent way of identifying seniority for inhouse solicitors who are all included in the lower level of solicitor.
Barristers: junior barristers (lower level) and Queens’s Counsel (QC) at the higher level.
Chartered Legal Executives: Chartered Legal Executives that are partners represent the higher level of seniority.

Solicitors, barristers and Chartered Legal Executives comprise very different populations and professions. Their population sizes are highly varied, as are their members’ qualification and employment processes, eligibility and potential interest in applying for, and consequent representation in, the judiciary. As a result, caution is advised in making comparisons between different professions, and with the JAC and Judicial Office data. In particular, Chartered Legal Executives are unable to apply for judicial roles requiring 7 or more years legal experience.

Judicial appointments - applications and selections

The JAC figures include all exercises which closed^{[footnote 6]}, between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2020^{[footnote 7]}. Senior appointments^{[footnote 8]} are not covered in the main commentary but are included in the accompanying tables, and exercises with fewer than 10 recommendations are grouped to maintain applicant confidentiality.

Recommendations from JAC selection exercises will not directly correspond to new entrants to the judiciary also covered in this publication, as there is a lag between selection exercises being completed and individuals taking up their post

Where 2 or more applicants are assessed as being of equal merit, the JAC can select an applicant for the purpose of increasing judicial diversity using the Equal Merit Provision (EMP) introduced by the Crime and Courts Act 2013. EMP can be applied at both the shortlisting and recommendation stages. The EMP was applied 19 times across 4 exercises at the shortlisting stage and 16 times across 2 exercises at the recommendation stage during the year covered.

A recommendation rate refers to the proportion of applicants (who have declared a specified characteristic) that were recommended for appointment which allows success of those with different characteristics to be compared within an exercise. These rates will depend on the number of applicants for the exercise as well as the number of posts available so that comparisons of rates between exercises should be avoided.

The Relative Rate Index (RRI) is also used to compare the relative success of two different groups, for example men and women. More information on the method of calculation and reporting can be found in the background guidance

Eligibility for judicial selection varies from one exercise to another. The Eligible Pool (EP) for an exercise presents the gender, ethnicity and professional background of individuals who meet the eligibility requirements – including minimum years of experience – for a specific legal exercise^{[footnote 9]}. There are three broad eligibility types:

Posts requiring a minimum 5 years legal experience, as a barrister, solicitor or Chartered Legal Executive
Posts requiring a minimum 7 years legal experience as a barrister or solicitor
Posts requiring previous judicial experience (in addition to a number of years legal experience)

This publication also includes figures for average years of PQE among candidates who have applied for judicial selection^{[footnote 10]}. These are a guide to actual levels of experience of applicants, and are therefore different from the eligible pool which is based on all those eligible for a role (many of whom will not apply).

When considering applicants’ professional background (chapter 5), applicants for judicial roles are analysed based on their full career history (i.e. whether ever a solicitor, or ever a barrister) as well as their current legal role at point of application. The ‘ever’ legal role is based on applicants self-reporting and does not take account of relative time in each profession.

Judicial office holders

JO data in this publication relates to judges and non-legal members of tribunals in post as at 1 April 2020, as well as leavers and new entrants from 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020.

Judges may hold more than one post at a time, for example some judges sit in more than once chamber, tribunal or court. In these statistics, a judge is counted only against their primary appointment, which is the one considered as their main judicial post.

The data covers all courts in England and Wales, all tribunals administered by HMCTS, Welsh tribunals not administered by HMCTS and magistrates in England and Wales. This includes the Employment Tribunal Scotland, in addition to tribunals in England and Wales. Tribunals that are the responsibility of the devolved Welsh Government are not included.

Question 4

1.  Overview of the legal professions and judiciary

Accepted Answer

This publication is based on data covering around 16,900 barristers, 148,300 solicitors and 8,100 Chartered Legal Executives, 37 legal and non-legal selection exercises run by the JAC in 2019-20 (with 8,258 applicants and 959 recommendations) and 3,174 court judges and 1,826 tribunal judges in post as at 1 April 2020

Of those who applied for court and tribunal positions requiring at least 5 years post-qualification experience, candidates had around 15 years’ experience on average. Of those who applied for positions requiring at least 7 years of experience, candidates had around 25 years’ experience on average.

1.1 Legal professions

As at 1 April 2020, there were 16,946 barristers, 148,284 solicitors and 8,109 Chartered Legal Executives (out of a total CILEx membership of around 20,000), based on the definitions outlined in the previous section.

The varying size of the professions should be kept in mind when interpreting the figures presented throughout this publication relating to the percentage of those in different professions with various characteristics (typically there will be more solicitors than barristers or Chartered Legal Executives). Absolute numbers are given in the accompanying data tables.

Additionally, Chartered Legal Executives are not eligible for most judicial appointments; in 2019-20, they were eligible to apply for 12 out of a total of 30 legal exercises^{[footnote 11]}.

1.2 Judicial appointments applicants and selections

Exercises in 2019-20

The JAC ran 37 selection exercises (excluding senior judicial appointments) in 2019-20^{[footnote 12]}:

18 exercises were for court posts
19 were for tribunal posts, of which 7 were for non-legal tribunal member posts.

While this publication only makes direct reference to the 14 large legal and 5 large non-legal exercises, totals include relevant smaller exercises (unless otherwise stated).

Overall, there were 8,258 applicants, resulting in 959 recommendations for immediate appointment (s87)^{[footnote 13]}

7,874 applications for legal posts, with 877 recommendations
384 applications for tribunal posts, with 82 recommendations.

In addition, a total of 11 applications were received and 5 recommendations made for the following senior judicial exercises completed in 2019–20: Court of Appeal^{[footnote 14]}.

Levels of experience among applicants

While information on the eligible pool for each exercise is presented (where available), the actual levels of applicants’ PQE are often greater than the statutory requirement of 5 or 7 years^{[footnote 15]}. As a result, further diversity breakdowns for the legal professions are given in the following chapters to allow a more meaningful comparison.

Court positions requiring 5 years PQE: average PQE of applicants was 17 years, with a range of 5 to 41 years.
Court positions requiring 7 years PQE: average 27 years, range 7 to 48 years.
Tribunal positions requiring 5 years PQE: average 18 years, range 5 to 41 years.
Tribunal positions requiring 7 years PQE: average 22 years, range 7 to 38 years.

Comparison with previous years

This publication presents data for selection exercises concluded during 2019-20, and does not draw comparison to previous years as these can be affected by the number and type of exercises run in a year, which can vary according to recruitment needs.

However, in comparison to pre-JAC years (1998-99 to 2005-06), there has been a clear increase in the representation of women and BAME candidates at both the application and recommendation stages for the four appointments where data is consistently available, while the representation of solicitors has varied by exercise in the pre-JAC and JAC periods ^{[footnote 16]}.

1.3 Judicial office holders

As at 1 April 2020, by primary appointments there were:

3,174 court judges
1,826 tribunal judges, with an additional 3,281 non-legal members of tribunals.

The overall number of court and tribunal judges has fluctuated over time, and there is no consistent pattern of increase or decrease. In direct comparison to 2012, the numbers of court judges (3,575 in 2012), and tribunal judges (2,060 in 2012) have both decreased.

This publication also covers new entrants to, and leavers from, the judiciary. Turnover in the judiciary tends to be relatively low, with 218 judges beginning their first appointment in 2019-20 (143 court, 75 tribunal judges) and 285 leaving in the same period (180 court, 105 tribunal).

There were 13,177 magistrates across England and Wales. The number of magistrates has fallen steadily in recent years, decreasing 48% overall from 25,170 in 2012.

Question 5

2.  Gender

Accepted Answer

2.1 Legal Professions

For those with over 15 years of legal experience 32% of barristers, 43% of solicitors and 69% of Chartered Legal Executives were women.

The proportion of women is notably lower for those with 20 or more years’ experience. Women are also less well represented at higher seniority levels, where 17% of Queens Counsel (barristers), 32% of partners (solicitors) and 57% of Chartered Legal Executive partners were women.

Considering each profession as a whole, compared to men, women constituted a lower proportion of barristers (38%), around half of solicitors (52%) and a higher proportion of Chartered Legal Executives (75%), though the proportion of women is lower for those with more years’ experience.

Post Qualification Experience

In practice most applicants for judicial roles have more than the minimum experience. For court and tribunal posts requiring 5 years or more experience, applicants have around 15 years’ experience on average . Among those with 15 or more years’ PQE, women constituted 32% of barristers, 43% of solicitors and 69% of Chartered Legal Executives.

For court and tribunal posts requiring 7 years or more experience, applicants have on average around 20 years’ experience^{[footnote 17]}. Among those with 20 or more years’ PQE, women constituted 28% of barristers, 37% of solicitors (and 63% of Chartered Legal Executives, though legal executives are not eligible to apply for these roles).

Figure 1: representation of women in the legal professions by PQE band, April 2020. Across all legal professions, the proportion of women is notably lower for those having 20+ years’ experience.

Seniority^{[footnote 18]}

Compared to men, at April 2020:

Among barristers, women constituted a lower proportion at both the lower (junior barrister) and higher (Queen’s Counsel) seniority levels (figure 2).
Among solicitors, there was a larger proportion of women at lower seniority levels (solicitor), but a lower proportion of women at higher seniority levels (partner).
Among Chartered Legal Executives, there was a larger proportion of women at both the lower (fellow) and higher (partner) seniority levels.

Figure 2: representation of women in the legal professions by seniority, April 2020. For all three professions, the proportion of women is lower at more senior compared to less senior levels.

2.2 Judicial appointments applicants and selections

Across all legal JAC exercises in 2019-20, women accounted for 50% of applicants, 45% of those shortlisted and 45% of those recommended for appointment.

3,697 applicants were women, of whom 377 were recommended for appointment^{[footnote 19]}. Overall, our best estimate is that there was no disparity for women relative to men when comparing recommendations with the eligible pool, with relative success rates for women an estimated 4% lower than for men, a difference which is not statistically significant.

Overall view

Across all legal exercises in 2019-20^{[footnote 20]} overall, compared to the eligible pool there was no evidence of disparity for either gender. From eligible pool to recommendation, the estimated^{[footnote 21]} RRI of 0.96 shows that overall the success rate for women was 0.96 times the rate for men (or 4% lower for women than men), a difference which is not statistically significant.

45% of recommendations were women; this compares with an expected 46% overall if recommendations were in line with the eligible pool for each exercise. Representation of women in the legal exercises remained relatively stable between the application and recommendation stages - women represented 50% of applications and 45% of those shortlisted.

Compared to men, women had a marginally higher recommendation rate from shortlisting but a lower recommendation rate from application (figure 3).

Figure 3: progression of applicants through the exercise stages by gender (all legal exercises completed in 2019-20). Difference in recommendation rate from application largely reflects differences at the shortlisting stage.

Exercise-specific analysis

There is considerable variation across exercises run in 2019-20. When considering women relative to men, from the eligible pool to recommendation we can be statistically confident a disparity exists for six of 14 large exercises (figure 4) – in two cases representing a lower success rate for women, and in four a lower success rate for men.

For example, for District Judge the RRI of 1.89 indicates that women were 1.89 times as likely (or 89% more likely) to be successful relative to men, compared to the eligible pool. Conversely for Recorder, women were 0.42 times as likely (58% less likely) to be successful.

There is a broad association between the relative success of women and the nature of the eligible pool, though caution is required in interpretation of these results:

for 4 of the 5 roles requiring previous judicial experience, there is a relative disparity in favour of women which is large enough to be considered practically important, though in 3 cases the difference was not statistically significant
for 3 of the 4 roles requiring at least 7 years legal experience, there is a practically significant disparity for women. It is likely that this is at least in part due to differences between the theoretical eligible pool and the pool of candidates that apply in practice; for example, most candidates applying for these roles have considerably more than the minimum experience (section 1), and among those with more experience a higher proportion are male (section 2.1)
for roles requiring at least 5 years legal experience, there is a more mixed pattern, though for 2 of the 5 there is a statistically significant disparity in favour of women of a size large enough considered to have practical importance.

In general, women tended to have a better relative success rate for tribunal exercises, compared to courts (within each of the different groupings shown in figure 4)

Figure 4: RRI for women compared to men, from eligible pool to recommendation^{[footnote 22]} (all legal exercises completed in 2019-20). Statistically significant results – where the confidence interval does not overlap the parity line - are dark blue. The tolerance zone is shaded grey; results falling within this zone are considered to represent a disparity which is not large enough to be considered practically important.

Representation rates (figure 5) help to show the progress of women at different stages of the selection process. In comparison to the eligible pool, the representation of women was higher at the recommendation stage for 7 out of 14 large legal exercises, and lower for 6. Again, there are different broad patterns depending on the nature of the eligible pool:

For roles requiring previous judicial experience, the proportion of women tended to increase from pool to applications and then to recommendation
However, for roles requiring 7 years legal experience, the opposite was true; the proportion of women among applicants was lower than in the eligible pool, and then fell further to recommendation (except for the High Court). As noted above, the limitations of the eligible pool, which are most notable for this group, should be borne in mind
For roles requiring 5 years legal experience, the pattern was more mixed; for the court roles the proportion of women was lower among recommendations than the eligible pool, with the opposite pattern for tribunals

Figure 5: representation of women at different exercise stages, by eligible pool type (all legal exercises completed in 2019-20). Representation of women was higher at recommendation stage than in the eligible pool for half of these large legal exercises

2.3 Judicial office holders

32% of court judges and 47% of tribunal judges were women as at 1 April 2020.
In the courts, there was a lower representation of women in the more senior posts (26% for the High Court and above). In the tribunals, 50% of judges in senior posts (presidents^{[footnote 23]}) were women. A higher proportion of new entrants, compared to leavers, were women.

Judges in post

As at 1 April 2020, women represented:

32% of all court judges – 1 percentage point higher^{[footnote 24]} than in 2019, and 8 percentage points higher than in 2014 (figure 6).
47% of all tribunal judges – no change from 2019 and 4 percentage points higher than in 2014.

Figure 6: proportion of court and tribunal judges that were women as at 1 April, from 2014. The proportion of women judges remains lower in courts than tribunals, but has increased more quickly in courts in recent years.

For context, women account for just over half of the general population of England and Wales aged 25-69^{[footnote 25]}. However, as judicial roles require substantial legal experience, a direct comparison with general population is less meaningful than consideration in relation to the makeup of the legal professions (as presented in section 2.1).

Entrants and leavers

New entrants: the proportion of new entrants to the judiciary during 2019-20– those not previously holding a judicial appointment – that were women was lower compared to judges in post^{[footnote 26]} for court judges, and broadly similar for tribunal judges (figure 7).

This figure can fluctuate from one year to the next depending on the appointments made, which do not cover all posts each year. In 2019-20, for example, most new entrants were Recorders, of which a lower than average proportion are women (23% of new entrants, and 22% of those in post).

Promotions: Among judges already holding a judicial role and promoted to another during 2019-20, 44% in courts and 47% in tribunals were women. Again, these figures can be affected by the mix of roles involved.

Leavers: A higher proportion of leavers from the judiciary were male compared to those in post, which reflects the higher proportion of older judges that are male.

For example, of those in post at 1 April 2020, 45% of court judges under 50 were women, compared with 28% of those 50 and over (and 20% of those 60 and over). There was a similar pattern in the tribunals – 51% under 50 were women, compared to 45% 50 and over.

Figure 7: representation of women among court and tribunal judges leaving and joining the judiciary, 1 April 2019 – 31 March 2020. Representation of women was higher among new entrants and those in post compared to leavers.

Patterns by type of appointment

The representation of women across the judiciary varied by appointment type and seniority (figure 8).

In the courts, 26% of judges in more senior posts (High Court and above) were women. The highest level of representation for women was among the District Judges (County Courts) at 44%.

In tribunals, women accounted for half of the most senior roles (Presidents, Chamber Presidents, Deputy and Vice Presidents).

Figure 8: representation of women among court and tribunal judges by appointment, 1 April 2020. The representation of women is generally lower for more senior posts in the courts.

Patterns by region

The representation of women across the court judiciary also varies considerably by region, from 27% in the South West, to 41% in the South East. Variations may reflect the nature of the appointments in the different regions. Further information is available in the accompanying data tables.

Question 6

3.  Ethnicity

Accepted Answer

3.1 Legal professions

For those with over 15 years of legal experience, 14% of barristers, 12% of solicitors and 3% of Chartered Legal Executives were BAME.

Representation of BAME individuals is lower among those with more experience and for higher seniority levels where BAME individuals represented 9% of Queen’s Counsel (barristers), 15% of partners (solicitors) and 4% of partners (Chartered Legal Executives).

Considering each profession as a whole, BAME individuals constituted 15% of barristers, 18% of solicitors and 10% of Chartered Legal Executives, though BAME representation generally fell with increasing experience and seniority.