The Guardian newspaper have published a letter from Professor Helen Carr which criticises the recent comments of Supreme Court Judge Jonathan Sumption about gender inequality in the legal profession.
In her letter, which was published in the Monday 28 September edition of The Guardian as the lead response on their letters page, Professor Carr expressed concerns about the deleterious nature of the comments of Lord Sumption, and their impact on a future generation of aspiring female lawyers:
…’Instead of worrying about the reluctance of men to apply for judicial jobs, perhaps Lord Sumption should think about the message he is sending out to bright young women thinking of entering the law – curtail your expectations for the sake of the legal system and the self-esteem of your male counterparts. That’s certainly not what I will be telling my students.’
Professor Carr also criticised the suggestion by Lord Sumption that it could take 50 years to achieve gender equality within the senior judiciary:
‘How depressing to be told now by a justice of the supreme court that it could take another 50 years. And, to add insult to injury, not only is it the lifestyle choices of my generation of women – rather than the maintenance of male privilege – that is to blame, but also, if we are not patient we could do “appalling” harm to British justice.’
Lord Sumption’s comments about gender inequality in an interview with the Evening Standard on 21 September – in which he attributed lower numbers of women in the legal profession to a ‘lifestyle choice’, and cautioned against efforts to accelerate the process of gender equality given the impact this could have on the perception of fairness amongst male candidates – have drawn criticism from within and from outside of the legal profession.
Professor Carr is the Director of Learning and Teaching at Kent Law School. She has considerable academic and professional expertise in the fields of housing, social welfare and public law, which has seen her work with the Welsh Government on the reform of housing law, and which saw her most recent co-authored research report examining current practices of shared property ownership launch in the House of Lords in July. The author of a number of legal texts on the subject of housing and social welfare, Professor Carr is currently completing a book on homelessness with Professor Caroline Hunter at York University.
Professor Carr is also a part time judge with the First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) and has recently been appointed to a Civil Justice Council working party on property disputes. For more details about Professor Carr’s research and publications, please visit her staff profile page.