David Wurtzel reports on the first meeting of the Middle Temple Women’s Forum
The recent survey Barristers’ Working Lives – released by the Bar Council and the Bar Standards Board – asked self-employed practitioners why they were working at the Bar. The respondents were provided with many choices from which a number could be ticked. Only 2% selected “work life balance (control over)”. This fact, long felt but now starkly evidenced, was one of the underlying themes behind the decision to establish the Middle Temple Women’s Forum which gathered together in Middle Temple Hall for the first time on 6 March, 48 hours before International Women’s Day. Whether or not there were, as estimated, more women in Hall than there had been since 1570, the attendance of some 300 was an impressive turn-out. They included members of all Inns, women of all calls, judges, representatives from the Bar Standards Board and other bodies, the chairman of the Bar and the Lord Chief Justice.