In this seventh episode, Kelyn Bacon – Mrs Justice Bacon DBE – and Sarah Abram got together to discuss gender equality and social mobility in the legal profession and the judiciary. Join them as they discuss:

· the reality of combining family life and practice;

· why the bar is a career which does allow that combination to work, even though there remains much that can and should be done to promote gender equality;

· the importance of schools outreach and, in particular, mentoring, in promoting social mobility; and,

· the mentoring that is available at all stages of career development.

Mrs Justice Bacon DBE was called to the Bar in 1998, and practised in EU and Competition law, with a particular specialism in state aid law (she was the author and general editor of European Union Law of State Aid and co-founder of the UK State Aid Law Association) and pharmaceutical regulation. She took silk in 2014, and appeared in many of the leading and landmark competition cases both domestically and in Europe. In 2017 she became a deputy high court judge, and in 2020 she was appointed to the High Court bench, to sit in the Chancery Division – the first woman from Brick Court Chambers to be appointed as a judge.

Sarah Abram was called to the Bar in 2006. Her practice straddles Chambers’ practice areas, encompassing competition, EU and commercial cases. Described by the legal directories as ‘without doubt a star of her generation’, Sarah was nominated as EU and Competition Junior of the Year in the Legal 500 UK Bar Awards in both 2019 and 2020. In 2021, she was crowned Pro Bono Junior of the Year, in recognition both for her pro bono work and her work developing and launching a mentoring scheme for prospective barristers from under represented groups, which launched in 2020 initially with 6 participating sets, and now involves 10 leading commercial sets.