Gender Equality at the Top: seeking parity across the board for women in the legal profession

50:50 by 2030: A longitudinal study into gender disparity in law - NIGERIA RESULTS REPORT

A new report from the Legal Policy & Research Unit (LPRU) of the International Bar Association (IBA) reveals that women account for 40 per cent of all lawyers in Nigeria and that in the country’s public sector 61 per cent occupy senior positions, while in law firms the figure is 43 per cent in senior roles. Click on the below link to download a PDF of the report and read about other statistics relating to women lawyers in Nigeria’s legal profession. 50:50 by 2030: A longitudinal study into gender disparity in law - NIGERIA RESULTS REPORT is the fourth report in the series of the study into gender disparity in the legal profession. The three previous reports cover the jurisdictions of England and Wales, Uganda and Spain.

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Overview

An ambitious new global project to study the lack of gender parity at the most senior levels of the legal profession. The first-of-its-kind, nine-year study will identify barriers and track progress of achieving equal representation of women in the highest levels of private practice, in-house positions, the public sector, and the judiciary.

The International Bar Association and LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation are collaborating on an ambitious global research project on gender equality in the legal profession. This study will focus on the number of senior women across private, public, judicial and in-house legal sectors in 16 jurisdictions. The aim of this project is to identify the statistical disparity between men and women at senior levels in the legal profession on a global scale, and identify whether diversity initiatives introduced to address this disparity are having any impact.

Current research shows that females make up the majority of law students and graduates globally, but this is not reflected in the statistics of those working at senior levels, across all legal sectors, where women still constitute a far smaller proportion than their male counterparts. The project seeks to understand and address this gap via a longitudinal study, and provide practical conclusions and guidance to the global legal profession.

While previous studies have focused primarily on commercial law firms, where data and willingness to participate have been prevalent, the IBA study will be the first to provide global data from law firms, the Bar, government, public prosecution, in-house lawyers and the judiciary. Data will be collected every three years, over a nine-year period. The study will go beyond simply identifying challenges faced by women practitioners; determining what measures and initiatives are being enacted by the profession; and tracking whether they are having an any meaningful impact upon the proportion of women lawyers in positions of seniority.

The Gender Project commenced with a pilot study in late 2021 with England and Wales, followed by Uganda, Spain and Nigeria. Research will commence in other countries in due course.

The project is being led by IBA’s Legal Policy & Research Unit, Diversity & Inclusion Council, with support and input from the Women Lawyers' Committee.

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