Celebrating the Centenary of the Admission of Women to the Bar following the enactment of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919

16 December, 2019

As part of the celebrations marking the centenary of the admission of women to the Bar, the members of Essex Court Chambers are proud to share a short video produced by the ‘First 100 Years’ project about one of our extremely distinguished former members of chambers, Dame Rosalyn Higgins GBE QC.

In 1986, Dame Rosalyn became only the 26th woman to take silk. She went on to become the first female judge elected to the International Court of Justice in 1995, and the first female president of the International Court of Justice in 2006.

Click here to view the video.

The First 100 Years (https://first100years.org.uk/) is a ground-breaking history project, supported by the Law Society, the Bar Council and CILEx, charting the journey of women in law since 1919. The project is powered by Spark21, a charity founded to celebrate, inform and inspire future generations of women in the profession. Work is now under way to produce a new digital museum made up of 100 video stories that tell the story of women in law. The project’s legacy will be the creation for the first time of positive role models for women in law, a deep understanding of the past combined with a celebration of today, a cross-sector platform for intelligent debate and change and a valuable archive accessible to everyone from law students to High Court Judges.