Legal

State bodies reject Bar Council policy to brief more women barristers

Office of the Attorney General and the State Claims Agency have declined to sign up to the policy which aims to encourage fairer distribution of work

Rossa Fanning: the Attorney General said he had recently refreshed the guidance panels on which his office selected counsel ‘with a particular emphasis’ on ‘adding suitably qualified women’. Picture: Collins

The Office of the Attorney General and the State Claims Agency (SCA) have declined calls from the Bar Council to sign up to a new policy which seeks to encourage entities to brief more women barristers.

The policy, which was approved by the council in June, aims to encourage those who brief barristers, such as solicitors and in-house counsel, to make a conscious effort to fairly distribute work between men and women.

The SCA, which ...