Members of One Pump Court commit to BSB Race Equality Taskforce Reverse Mentoring pilot.

21 Dec 2020

In Autumn 2020 the Bar Standards Board’s Race Equality Taskforce launched a pilot of its Reverse Mentoring Scheme. This Scheme aims to address the barriers to race equality at the Bar, by providing insight into people’s experiences of racism and working to foster anti-racism in the profession. To achieve its aims, the Scheme pairs Bar students, pupil barristers and junior barristers from Minority Ethnic Groups as mentors, with senior barristers from White backgrounds as mentees.

There are more details (including how to apply) at Race Equality Taskforce Reverse Mentoring Scheme here

The first 16 pairings include three members of One Pump Court – Evelyn Palmer is mentoring Clive Matthews, Creanna Dodson is mentoring Nicholas Nicol and Student Hifzah Younis is mentoring Jamie Presland.

The Scheme reflects the BSB’s belief that, “to achieve race equality in our profession, the onus of change needs to be on the White majority and senior ranks of the profession”.

Members of chambers and staff at One Pump Court all undertook unconscious bias training, and many have worked with member Raggi Kotak’s ground breaking Anti-Oppression Training.

Our ethos at One Pump Court Chambers recognises that ‘society is not equal’.  We continue to do all we can to change this.  We remain committed to levelling the playing field for all. We are proud of our record in defending the rights and liberties of everyone, including marginalised groups, by fearlessly representing our clients equally. We stand alongside them all.

Jamie Presland said “We applaud the commitment of the young entrants to the Bar to this challenging reverse mentoring process, and we are happy to rise to the challenge. Some of the insights so far have been remarkable. We all need to keep on learning to see where prejudice can creep into the law, and how it can affect  the opportunities for those coming into our vital profession, if we want to achieve justice for the clients we all strive to represent.”

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