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27 April 2012 / Francesca Kaye
Issue: 7511 / Categories: Opinion , Profession
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Should it matter?

The LSLA’s first female president Francesca Kaye considers the interest surrounding her appointment

In 2012 you would hope that the fact that the president of an association such as the London Solicitors Litigation Association (LSLA) was a woman was of little or no interest or consequence. The fact that it is reflects poorly on the state of equality and diversity in the world of litigation.

The LSLA elects its presidents on merit and judges them on their record over their two years in office. That is how it should be. The president’s gender is not (and should not be) a factor in the election process.

Women in the legal profession

There is a fair amount of soul-searching currently about the role and status of women in the legal profession. Last month, the Law Society and LexisNexis unveiled the results of a survey on Women in the Law for the Law Society’s International Women in Law Summit, held on International Women’s Day (see “Tackling female brain drain”). The Ministry of Justice (MoJ)

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NEWS
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The Supreme Court has restored ‘doctrinal coherence’ to unfair prejudice litigation, writes Natalie Quinlivan, partner at Fieldfisher LLP, in this week' NLJ
The High Court’s refusal to recognise a prolific sperm donor as a child’s legal parent has highlighted the risks of informal conception arrangements, according to Liam Hurren, associate at Kingsley Napley, in NLJ this week
The Court of Appeal’s decision in Mazur may have settled questions around litigation supervision, but the profession should not simply ‘move on’, argues Jennifer Coupland, CEO of CILEX, in this week's NLJ
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