ChBA Charter for Fairness

ChBA Charter for Fairness

CHARTER FOR FAIRNESS

IN WORK ALLOCATION, CAREER DEVELOPMENT, MARKETING AND EARNINGS AT THE CHANCERY BAR

The Fairness Charter has been created in response to the enormous amount of work done by the Chancery Bar Association’s Equality and Diversity Subcommittee, following on from the Voices of Women at the Chancery Bar report published 3 April 2021. 

The Fairness Charter contains 12 practical suggestions which we believe will assist Chambers in seeking to achieve fairness in work allocation, career development, marketing and earnings for female barristers in a meaningful way. 

Though its genesis is a wide-ranging discussion around gender equality at the Bar, the Fairness Charter has equal relevance to practitioners with other protected characteristics, for instance Black barristers.  Equally, whilst created by the Chancery Bar Association with its members in mind, we believe that the Fairness Charter is of relevance to all practice areas. 

Chambers can sign up to the Fairness Charter even if they have not yet implemented all the suggestions. The Fairness Charter allows you to sign up straight away and commit to making additional changes by a self-specified date, which ideally would not be more than a year away from your initial sign up.  Click here to read the Charter.

By publicising that they have adopted the Fairness Charter, Chambers will send out an important message that they take seriously the progression of more female barristers into senior roles in the profession.   

How to Sign Up

To sign up to the Charter, please with the subject “Charter for Fairness”. The email should –

  • Explain which person in your Chambers has decided to adopt the Fairness Charter; and
  • Confirm that person has the authority to do so on behalf of Chambers.

You will then be sent a Word version of the Fairness Charter survey which you should complete and return to us. We will review the survey and, if approved, send you the Charter Mark for the relevant year, which you can display on your website, appropriate marketing and recruitment materials, and in email footers if you wish. Please note that if you wish to display the Charter Mark anywhere else, you must have ChBA’s permission first. By sending the completed Fairness Charter to us, you agree to allow us to include you on a published list of signatory Chambers. 

In addition to publicising the fact that you have signed up, we invite signatories to annually renew their ongoing commitment to the Fairness Charter. We suggest you do so towards the end of the calendar year, providing us with a short qualitative assessment of how you have got on in the previous 12 months and confirming that you wish to remain signed up to the Fairness Charter. We will then provide the updated Charter Mark for the next year. 

We consider the Fairness Charter to be a “living” document. Please do include any relevant feedback in your annual progress report(s). This will assist us in ensuring that the Fairness Charter is able to  develop and stay relevant in the long term. 

We will not formally be checking compliance. The Fairness Charter relies on self-assessment and self-certification.

Note: Only ChBA will hold records of your initial Fairness Charter survey and annual progress reports. They will not be shared with any third parties without your permission.