Starting Out on a Judicial Career: Gender Diversity and the Appointment of Recorders, Circuit Judges, and Deputy High Court Judges, 1996–2016

Abstract

This article is a quantitative study of those who are appointed Recorders and Circuit Judges, and who are authorized or appointed as Deputy High Court Judges. It considers the period 1996–2016, being the twenty years that straddle either side of the creation of the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC). A key focus is the gender diversity of these appointments and how this has changed over time, including whether the transfer of appointments to the JAC has made a difference to gender diversity or whether increases in the proportions of female judges are attributable solely to a changing demographic among the pool of lawyers from which such judges tend to be appointed. Who are appointed to these positions is significant both because of the importance of the positions themselves, but also because they comprise the pool from which, as a practical reality, the Senior Judiciary is appointed.