Glass ceiling in legal profession still exists; women have to make extra effort to shatter it: Justice Hima Kohli

Despite making up half of the globe’s talent base, women are typically excluded from decision-making, be it within the four walls of their homes or outside, the Supreme Court's Justice Hima Kohli said on Saturday..Justice Kohli was speaking at an event organised by the International Arbitration and Mediation Centre (IAMC), Hyderabad on the topic Inclusion and Empowerment.The discussion panel consisted of women from various industries, senior bureaucrats, heads of women-led organizations and women working in government departments.During the fireside chat, she said,"As a first-generation lawyer in the family to the senior-most women judge serving in the Supreme Court, it has been indeed a long and enriching journey, but this does not detract from the fact that there exists a glass ceiling even today, and women have to make that extra effort to shatter it.".The judge said that there has been a running gender disparity in the legal profession between men and women, whether in litigation practice or in law firms. Women lawyers frequently report that they face gender bias and stereotyping, struggle to maintain a work-life balance, experience disparity in salary and harassment at the workplace, she added..The "old boys club" continues to operate at different levels, albeit more subtly these days, creating an impediment for women practitioners, Justice Kohli underscored."Discrimination faced by women in the legal field is not limited to discrimination in the form of unequal caseloads/assignments or unequal remuneration as compared to their male counterparts; it is also reflected in lesser opportunities for appointment of women as partners in law firms, lesser opportunities for their inclusion on panels of lawyers in the corporate sector or in the government sector," the Supreme Court judge said..Batting for more inclusion of women in the profession, Justice Kohli emphasized that the presence of women in top leadership positions within law firms and in government organizations will help overcome the unconscious bias and will instil confidence in women as decision-makers."Since corporate users are important stakeholders in the world of arbitration, they must ensure that names of women are included in any list that they receive for appointing an arbitrator or as an advocate. Young women lawyers must be afforded opportunities to intern in the legal departments of business houses and the government sector to gain experience," she said.She also called for the need to track and publish statistics relating to appointment of women as partners in law firms, as arbitrators, as judges and as members of tribunals and commissions. Compiling and publishing these statistics will help in analyzing where the fault lines are; and help find solutions to bridge the fissures, she added.