IBA Raising the Bar: Women in Law
Overview
An ambitious global project running since 2021 examining women’s representation across all levels, including the most senior, of the legal profession. The first-of-its-kind, multi-year study will review gender parity in the highest levels of private practice, in-house positions, the public sector and the judiciary, as well as seek to understand women’s experiences working in the law, with the aim of raising awareness and providing recommendations to move forward.
The ‘Raising the Bar: Women in Law’ project is the International Bar Association’s ambitious global research project on gender parity in the legal profession, focusing on women’s representation. Phase 1 of the project will focus on the number of senior women across private, public, judicial and in-house legal sectors in 16 jurisdictions. Phase 2 of the project will focus on women’s experiences working in the profession to understand what is and isn’t working for women in the law.
The aim of this project is to identify the statistical disparity between men and women at all levels, with a focus on senior positions, in the legal profession on a global scale, and identify whether workplace initiatives introduced to address this disparity are having any impact.
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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 multi-year 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 public sector, in-house lawyers, the judiciary, and where relevant, barristers and advocates.
In March 2022, the first of the project’s reports was released on England and Wales. Reports on Uganda and Spain followed later that year. The report on Nigeria was released on International Women's Day 2023, followed by the Netherlands and Chile later that year. A case study on Nepal was released at the start of 2024, the report on the Republic of Korea was published in April, and the Brazil report followed in August 2024. The Mexico report was released at the annual conference in September, followed by Ukraine and Türkiye at the end of 2024. In December 2024 a Progress Report was published, setting out the key findings from the project to date following the publication of reports across 11 jurisdictions. The Taiwan report was released in early 2025. Reports on Australia, Canada, South Africa and India are underway.
The project is being led by IBA’s Legal Policy & Research Unit, Diversity & Inclusion Council, with support and input from the Women Lawyers' Committee.
If you would like to be involved in producing a case study on gender balance in the legal profession in your jurisdiction please contact:
sara.carnegie@int-bar.org
IBA Raising the Bar: Women in Law project – Phase 2
The IBA’s project aims to explore women’s representation across all levels of the legal profession, with a focus on those in senior positions. Phase 2 of the project comprised a global survey seeking views from women working in the law, as well as those who have recently left the profession, about a variety of topics, including:
- their experience as lawyers in the profession;
- initiatives available and their impact;
- barriers to practice;
- reasons for staying or leaving the profession;
- areas or sectors of practice;
- career satisfaction; and
- the impact of family or other caring responsibilities on their careers.
The survey closed in June 2025 and received nearly 5,000 responses from over 100 jurisdictions globally. Analysis of the data is currently underway and findings from the survey will be presented at the IBA’s Annual Conference in November 2025.
