Food for thought: Do women make more ethical lawyers?

Speakers: Andrew Boon of The City Law School and Avis Whyte of Westminster Law School.

We are delighted to invite members and non-members to take part in the third of our series of events aimed at providing an environment for discussing some difficult issues being faced by our profession within the City environment.

Andrew Boon and Avis Whyte recently published a research paper, “Trusted to the ends of the earth?”, which sets out their analysis of solicitors’ disciplinary processes in England and Wales from 1994 to 2015.

Their study examined misconduct cases involving solicitors over a twenty year period and reveals a number of interesting patterns and points. These include: the failure of Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (“SDT”) case volumes to increase despite an increase in the size of the profession over the period; an increase in the rate of striking off; and an apparent reluctance on the part of the SDT, in some cases, to arrive at dishonesty findings. Whilst our speakers will share all their principal findings with us, our discussion will focus on the fact that women continue to represent just 20% of those appearing before the SDT notwithstanding rising numbers of women solicitors. We’ll explore why this might be the case, and whether the research supports the controversial contention that women are more ethically inclined than other lawyers.

Register for free.