Mary Ann Sieghart’s 2021 book, The Authority Gap, considered persistent inequality between men and women. She explained the authority gap as, 

“A measure of how less seriously we still take women than men. We assume a man knows what he is talking about until he proves otherwise but for a woman, it is all too often the other way round.” 

In law today, we are still working to overcome generations of inequality. Men and women enter the profession in roughly equal numbers but there remains a disparity at senior levels – an IBA report published in December 2022 found that in Spain, women account for 54% of legal professionals but only hold 31% of top positions. The authority gap may help to explain some of this inequality. 

As young lawyers, we have a unique opportunity and responsibility to create change in law. We are both the people who are able to make change and those who will immediately benefit from change.  We support the IBA’s call for the law to be 50/50 by 2030.  We have six years to make that happen.  And for men, closing the gap is also good news, research has shown that men in more egalitarian societies are happier and healthier – suffering less mental ill health and have a better relationship with their children and their partners. 

In this session, we don’t just want to interact – we want to inspire to action. Through powerful speakers, testimony from our friends and colleagues, polls and discussion, we will 

• we will consider specific examples of the authority gap in practice.
• we will learn techniques to address personal and organisational bias.
• we will leave galvanised to do better; each of us committing to take action to close the authority gap in one generation.