City giants push for more solicitors to join judiciary

Linklaters' Cheyne and Baroness Neuberger head up group aiming to bring senior lawyers into judiciary

Leading City partners from firms including Linklaters and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer are calling for more solicitors to join the judiciary as part of plans to increase judicial diversity.

A group of partners, led by Linklaters senior partner David Cheyne and Baroness Julia Neuberger, submitted proposals last month on how solicitors should get more involved, with the findings forming part of a wider report issued by the advisory panel on judicial diversity, which was formed last April by Lord Chancellor Jack Straw.

The group, which also includes Guy Morton and David Gold, senior partners at Freshfields and Herbert Smith respectively; Allen & Overy general counsel Andrew Clarke; and Clifford Chance's head of public policy Michael Smyth, wants to see solicitors in their 40s encouraged to undertake tribunal or other judicial positions.

To do this, it suggests individual City firms should be more proactive in promoting paid roles, such as recorder positions, among senior solicitors to try and increase the appeal of judiciary posts.

The group also wants to see a wider campaign to improve solicitors' awareness of the judicial appointment opportunities open to them.

Encouraging lawyers to take on the roles will also require firms to be more flexible with working arrangements so that partners can fit the posts around client work. This would be particularly true for transactional lawyers.

Cheyne (pictured) told Legal Week: "The judiciary needs to broaden itself and law firms need to see this as something to be encouraged among partners. It would be good for the profession generally and the judicial system, which would get a wider skillset if more solicitors took up judicial posts."

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