The supreme court has announced its first paid internships for aspiring lawyers from underrepresented communities as it seeks to increase diversity in the judiciary.
The initiative by the UK’s highest court, in collaboration with the charity Bridging the Bar, comes as the supreme court, judiciary and legal profession more widely face scrutiny over accessibility.
All 12 supreme court justices are white and only two are women. Across the judiciary in England and Wales, the proportion of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) court judges was 8% as of 1 April, with 4% in senior posts (high court and above). For women, the respective figures were 32% and 26%. According to the 2011 census, 14% of the population were BAME and 51% were female.
The new programme will offer a five-day placement to eight Bridging the Bar candidates who have either completed or accepted an offer to take the bar professional training course.
Vicky Fox, the chief executive of the UK supreme court, said: “The
court recognises that it has a leadership role to play to support
increasing diversity of the judiciary and it is our intention that this
programme will support the progression of underrepresented groups into
the legal profession and ultimately into judicial roles.
“We are looking forward to learning from the interns and hope that the programme will provide an intellectually stimulating experience for participants and support them to pursue a career in the law.”
Each participant will be assigned to a judicial assistant and over the course of the week, the interns will observe cases, discuss legal arguments with justices and gain insights and guidance.
Bridging the Bar, which promotes equal opportunity and diversity in the legal profession, will run two days of preparatory coaching before the placement to ensure candidates are ready for their time at the court.
Eleanor Tack, from the charity, said: “I am very excited about this programme. It’s going to be a really challenging week for the candidates who will be asked to discuss legal arguments with the judicial assistants and justices and give a presentation at the end. For this reason, only candidates of the highest quality will be selected, and we expect the competition to be extremely high.”
Thursday’s announcement by the supreme court came as it published its judicial diversity and inclusion strategy, which aims to support the progress of underrepresented groups into judicial roles and achieve an inclusive and respectful working environment for justices.
SOURCE ; theguardian.com
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