However, as age increases, the amount of women solicitors registered for legal aid decreases while the number of men significantly increases. For example, only 23 women in the age category of 56-60 are registered to take on criminal legal aid this year, in comparison to a total of 97 men in the same age category.
In total, there are 568 men registered to take on criminal legal aid cases while they are only 343 women.
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Melissa Rutherford is one of the female criminal legal aid lawyers. The 40 year-old whose practice is in Glasgow worries about less women taking on legal aid cases and what this means for both clients and gender equality across the profession.
In Glasgow, there are currently 118 men who are registered to take on legal aid cases and only 38 women, as of this year.
Ms Rutherford, who also works on civil and children’s legal aid cases, told The Herald: “Women being present matters particularly for civil legal aid due to the nature of domestic incidents, interdicts, family divorces.
“We are looking after the most vulnerable in society and women can be very empathetic and caring in terms of trauma issues and experiences. Clients want and need female representation.”
“If women aren’t seeing women in the profession taking on legal aid cases then there’s no aspirations there and we are going to have no lawmakers coming through the criminal courts, we are going to have no sheriffs or judges coming through the criminal courts that are female. Things have to change.”
Across all local authorities, Alloa was the only area which had an equal number of men and women on legal aid cases- a split of one man and one woman registered in the area. All other areas showed an imbalance towards men.
Ms Rutherford believes there are a number of reasons why women do not continue taking on legal aid cases.
Ms Rutherford said: “Maternity leave can be really non existent at a private firm and the policies when you come back to work with a young child is really really difficult.
“So either people leave before they are having children and go into the Crown Office or the Children’s Reporter because you get your full year’s maternity and then you can get a flexible approach when you return to work. The pension and flex-time is also far better in the public sector”
Ms Rutherford has an 11-year-old daughter and she told The Herald it was “incredibly difficult” to take on legal aid cases after she returned to work five months after giving birth.
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“It was awful”, the solicitor said: “I missed out on quite a lot of her life when she was younger because I was working so much and with legal aid cases your volume of work is high because you get such low pay so you kind of have to start the cases high to make any profit. That was a really difficult period for me.”
The only reason Ms Rutherford stayed in the private sector was because she opened her own firm in 2016 with her business partner. The major benefit for her is the flexibility this provides.
“Eight years in, I can drop my daughter at school and pick her up. I can go to her events because I have the staff at the firm so that is a huge benefit…But it’s a shame because many women don’t have that option.”
Tracey Mulholland, a solicitor and president of the Glasgow Bar Association, teaches a diploma in civil litigation. Last year her course had 12 women and zero men, while this year she had four men and eight women. Despite this imbalance towards women at university level, retention levels amongst women are low.
“Retention is really bad. I think it’s hard work, poor pay.” Ms Mulholland said: “I think the challenges the defence have in terms of paying staff and the money we’re making actually drills down…
“People are choosing to leave for private firms where the starting salary is something like £50,000 per year. We can’t compete with that.
“As a legal aid firm, these are wages you cannot start people that are less skilled. I don’t criticise the young people for it – it’s an easier lifestyle.
“If you’re working at a private firm you’re not getting phone calls from your client at 2am crying because they police have just went through their door.
“You’re not getting phone calls from the police at three in the morning, or texts at 11 o’clock at night asking for their court dates. You’re on 24/7 sometimes.”
Senior law lecturer at Glasgow University, Rachel McPherson said she believes a change in female participation may be as a result of the Cadder Ruling – a UK Supreme Court decision in 2010 that meant police in Scotland cannot question suspects without allowing them access to a lawyer.
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Rachel McPherson: “One of the implications I think has been for women in that it makes participation in criminal law more difficult because you’re then in a situation where you could be called out through the night.
“When we cross-reference that with Public Health Scotland data on the average age of a first pregnancy which is saying that 59% of women are now 30 years or older at the time of giving birth. They then enter this area of their life where their caring responsibilities are not only for young children but for aging parents as well.”
Dr McPherson says more research needs to be done on women’s participation in criminal law: “More research on this would also be really important – to work out how women are being impacted and why they start to participate less in criminal law.”
