CADENA DE CUSTODIA

The global IBA (Pinder: 2019) survey found significant levels of bullying in the UK legal profession with almost 60% of cases going unreported. It details the effects on victims: more than half of bullied respondents left their workplace, or are considering leaving. 1 in 7 have left, or are thinking of leaving the legal profession entirely (Slingo, 2019).

Our research found a range of disturbing instances of ill-treatment and bullying of disabled people. It was not unusual for interviewees to report ill-treatment that was associated with specific impairments, but bullying was also connected to misunderstandings or jealousy related to requests for, or granted, reasonable adjustments. Moreover, as a senior

employed barrister told us, in such a competitive profession he felt his mental ill- health had made him susceptible to bullying. He referred to a particular colleague, who he described as “sensing a vulnerability about me”. Because of the effects of this bullying he had required time off work to receive psychiatric support to deal with the events, but despite reporting incidents, the behaviour of the bully had not been dealt with by his employer.

We also found that it was common for disabled people to be accused by senior personnel or peers of ‘being difficult’. One interviewee’s experiences, though at the extreme end of those reported, had a devastating effect on her psycho-emotional well-being. She described how she:

“Constantly had to fight for support… and was accused of ‘being difficult’”… “It was left for me to arrange things. It was left for me to be a more proactive person constantly saying this is what I need. … I then developed anxiety and starting having panic attacks because I thought they were going to dismiss me and it was just a really stressful period. ... on reflection I got bullied. I had people writing BITCH on my designated work area because again that was something I had to fight for”… “when I complained to my Principal, he looked into it but he didn’t actually do much about it. It was a really unpleasant experience”

Through tenacity and determination this interviewee successfully completed her training contract, but was then unable to secure employment. Her confidence and self-esteem severely undermined, she continues to be determined to work:

“[I] do want to be able to have the things I need to make my life a lot better. If I can’t do that how am I supposed to live? What am I supposed to do? ... There’s nothing wrong with being on benefits but if you have my skill set, why would you be on benefits?”

14.1 Intersectionality

In both focus groups and interviews, there were discussions about whether ill-treatment experienced in training or employment, was the outcome of a disability, or of multiple protected characteristics: most commonly ethnicity, gender or age. One person recounted how she had noticed few black or visibly disabled people in senior roles in the organisations she had worked in:

“as a black woman I’m used to… I’ve always known that I’ve had to work a lot harder than my white counterparts”

Adding:

“With having a disability, I have to compensate even more. That’s probably made me the way that I am in terms of always constantly wanting to do work or do more to overachieve perhaps as well”

She also felt there were disparities and division within the disability community and that people with some impairments were encouraged or accepted more than others:

“Then you see the disparity because other disabilities and other people who might be in your areas that they are being encouraged to do certain things, why is it that you’re not being encouraged? What is the difference in your disability to theirs?”

A female interviewee who went to lengths to hide her impairment despite it seriously affecting her daily life, commented that being a woman in the legal profession was already a disadvantage, but being disabled as well was incredibly difficult. By concealing her

impairment she had tried to avoid or minimise disability related disadvantages but inevitably this meant she had not benefitted from the adjustments she was entitled to. Commenting on this, she said:

“it’s bad enough, you know, being female… where you’re commitment’s constantly questioned if you’re, you know, too feminine, or might go off and have another child or something like that, but then, you know, to take up your empathy quota by also being disabled……. You never get anywhere”

Significantly, this interviewee also referred to instances where both gendered and ableist assumptions were made about her in a very routine ways:

“in an appraisal there was feedback… saying I was a bit nervous going into the meeting room, and you know, maybe I didn’t have enough gravitas, which is a sexually charged word anyway”

This kind of impressionistic comment could be interpreted as making both gendered and ableist assumptions. The fact was, as this interviewee went on to explain, the physical environment, in particular the glass doors that she had to negotiate to get into the meeting room, was the real source of her nerves, because of her limited sight.

A number of women referred to the ‘macho competitiveness’ of the profession and several commented that this contributed to a culture where they felt that sexual harassment would be tolerated:

“I went to [an event about] sexual harassment and there were lots of women saying that they just felt like it was a profession where you had to be tough all the time. That meant accepting people, like, bullying you or harassing you and... and just kind of carrying on with it”.

Several interviewees told us about instances where they felt they were being discriminated against, but were unsure whether this was because of their disability, ethnicity, gender or age. For example, a BME interviewee ‘Ben’ told us how he found himself in an interview being asked where his parents were originally from?! This led him to reflect that he was often unsure if he had been rejected for jobs or training contracts due to his race or disability. Like others we interviewed and the IBA (2019) report found, ‘Ben’ had reached the conclusion that there was no point in making a complaint about the ill- treatment or discrimination he encountered because he believed his career would be more harmed by such a complaint than anything else.