A new society for all University of Bristol students, the Women in Law society aims to get the law to do more for women and get women to do more in the law, regardless of gender, subject or age. They wish to address the issues that the legal sector still faces when it comes to equality in the workplace. Most significantly, the progression of women into the top, partner-level roles. From this, along with the other societies, the concept of Women in Conversation was born.
Women in Law Society President and final year law student, Eliza Kirby explained more about the week’s events:
The week was comprised of individual society panel events, three cross-sectional panel sessions, a launch coffee morning and a careers fair. It was brilliant to see collaboration in action and as a result, a series of fantastic events and great student engagement.
We started the week off with a coffee morning at local coffee shop Friska, discussing the week ahead and starting the conversation about the challenges and opportunities across a number of fields – all over delicious barista coffees and cake! It was brilliant to see so many students from different subjects coming together and breaking out of subject specific silos.
On Monday, we went on to hear from three panellists from financial and legal backgrounds considering what it means to be an ‘ally’ in the workplace. Sally Patterson from the SU skilfully chaired the panel, broaching topics such as quotas, mentoring and the importance of gender neutral language in the workplace. Notably, the panellists highlighted the need to bring men into discussions around gender equality and it was great to see all genders in the audience.
Similarly, we gained perspectives from women in different industries about what it means to be a female leader in our Women in Leadership panel. The panellists included Marti Burgess, a top commercial lawyer and the owner of nightclub ‘Lakota’, Sam Budd, the chief executive of the SU and Rav Bumbra, the founder of Structur3dpeople and Cajigo. In fact, everyone that attended the panel session was lucky enough to get free coupon codes for Cajigo, a mobile learning platform providing women with mentorship for leadership careers. As raised by a member of the audience, it was brilliant to see so many BAME women on the panel and hear about their unique experiences.
My personal highlight of the week was, of course, the Women in Law panel session. As the key challenge faced by women in the legal profession is career progression, to partner and QC levels, this was the focus of the panel session. We heard from Julie Lewis, the managing partner of Irwin Mitchell’s Bristol office and head of the clinical negligence team, Jan Markland, head of the Personal Injury team at VWV and Debbie Grennan, head of the employment law team at Guildhall Chambers. Both VWV and Irwin Mitchell have some of the highest rates of female partners in the country. It was great to hear how the firms have achieved this and what more other law firms can do to help women in their careers. From Debbie, we learnt about the experience of female barristers and the unique challenges posed by court schedules and the self-employed nature of the role. The panel was expertly chaired by Professor Joanne Conaghan, who has achieved similar career progression in academia, as the previous Head of the Law School at Bristol.
It was a fantastic week and it will be brilliant to watch it grow in the years to come.