Lucie Allen, Managing Director of BARBRI, is the fourth guest of the IBA’s Inspirational Legal Women podcast series
The International Bar Association’s (IBA) Legal Policy & Research Unit (LPRU) has released the fourth episode in its Inspirational Legal Women podcast series, featuring an interview with Lucie Allen, Managing Director of BARBRI International – a global legal education company specialising in bar exam preparation and legal training.
Ms Allen has spent most of her career working with the legal profession, previously holding the position of Vice President for the Global Large Law segment at Thomson Reuters. Recognised for her collaborative approach and commitment to diversity and inclusion, she is also a director of She Breaks the Law and founder of #MenopauseMatters. Allen also collaborates with the IBA to design specialist courses.
Click here to listen to the conversation with Lucie Allen.
A full list of episodes is available here.
Below are a few excerpts from the podcast:
‘My personal passion in it [the role at BARBRI] is the opportunity for us to continue to kind of democratise access to the law and to the profession and to help people into that space should that be their chosen career.’
‘When I reflect on what’s made me successful or what’s helped me in my career, it’s that leaning more into the empathy and the communication and the qualities that might be seen as softer, but I think are increasingly important, particularly in kind of today’s environment.’
‘It’s really important to build your network, to find the people that will support you. And then as you’re climbing the ladder, I think it’s also equally important to think about how you lift others, so how you left others along with you as you reaching new successes and new heights too.’
Click here to read the full episode transcript.
Click here to download a photo of Lucie Allen.
The Inspirational Legal Women podcast series encourages IBA members with interesting careers and remarkable stories to share their thoughts and experiences about what it means to be a woman in the legal profession and how they have navigated different types of workplaces and challenges over the course of their careers. The LPRU’s Sara Carnegie, Director of Legal Projects, and Isla Tobin, Project Lawyer, interview women across all areas of the law and a range of jurisdictions. The initiative was launched on 3 March 2025 with IBA Secretary-General, Deborah Enix-Ross as the first interviewee, followed by Carola van den Bruinhorst, the Immediate Past Chair of the IBA Legal Practice Division, and by Faiza Alleg Dolivet for the third episode.
The series complements the LPRU’s work on gender inequality in the legal profession, including the 50:50 by 2030: A longitudinal study into gender disparity in law project, which aims to explore and address the lack of gender parity across all levels and areas relating to legal professionals, with a focus on senior positions. To date, 13 reports have been released as part of the project: England and Wales, Uganda and Spain in 2022; followed by Nigeria, the Netherlands and Chile in 2023; and, in 2024, reports on the Republic of Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Ukraine and Türkiye. In December 2024 the Progress Report was published, which compiled the results of the reports that had been released up to December 2024, providing readers with an overview of the landscape. Also published in 2024 was a case study on Nepal, submitted to the IBA to sit alongside the IBA-written reports.
Phase 2 of the project comprises a global survey seeking views from women in the legal profession about a variety of topics, including their experience in the profession, initiatives in place and their efficacy, barriers they have encountered and their reasons for staying in or leaving the profession. All women colleagues are encouraged to have their say.
ENDS
Notes to the reader:
A full list of episodes is available to access here.
Click here to complete the Phase 2 survey. The overall aim of the project is to contribute to efforts to achieve equal representation of men and women at the top of the profession.
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The International Bar Association (IBA), the global voice of the legal profession, is the foremost organisation for international legal practitioners, bar associations and law societies. Established in 1947, shortly after the creation of the United Nations, it was born out of the conviction that an organisation made up of the world's bar associations could contribute to global stability and peace through the administration of justice.
The IBA has considerable expertise in providing assistance to the global legal community, and through its global membership, it influences the development of international law reform and helps to shape the future of the legal profession throughout the world.
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