Ms Arpón de Mendívil, a partner at law firm Gómez-Acebo & Pombo in Madrid, Spain commented: ‘I am proud to launch the first ever IBA Women’s Day this 8 March. Women in law can achieve senior positions, they must dare to do so, their merits do matter for that purpose. This first celebration aims at giving visibility to women who are successful in their careers in the legal sector across the world, demonstrating that success is attainable and connecting all of them, thus multiplying the impact of the message. Experiences will be shared with younger practitioners allowing them to recognise challenges they may be facing in order to advance in their path to senior positions, offering them potential solutions. The event will also promote the exchange of views amongst their peers form other firms. The IBA Women’s Day is a day that I hope will become a much anticipated annual fixture in our Association’s calendar.’

Conceived by Ms Arpón de Mendívil and developed in collaboration with the IBA Women Lawyers’ Committee, the IBA Women’s Day taking place on Wednesday 8 March 2023 will see simultaneous events in the form of fireside chats or panels take place across several jurisdictions around the world. The gatherings will include interactive question and answer sessions as well as time for networking.

At 1430 Central European Time, the lead partners of each jurisdiction will connect online with Ms Arpón de Mendívil, who will give a short address before asking those lead partners to introduce themselves, showing the breadth of nations participating in the initiative.

Addressing gender equality in the legal profession is one of the IBA’s  priorities for the term 2023/2024. It follows through from two years ago when the IBA launched, on International Women’s Day 2021, the ‘50/50 by 2030’ project – a longitudinal study into gender disparity in law. This is an ambitious, first-of-its-kind, nine-year global project to uncover the root-causes of the lack of gender parity at the most senior levels of the legal profession, across private, public, judicial and in-house legal sectors and identify whether diversity initiatives introduced to address this disparity are having any impact. The project also aims to provide practical conclusions and guidance to the profession. The IBA’s Legal Policy & Research Unit and the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation are collaborating on the surveys and analysis. Findings for the legal profession in England and Wales, Uganda, and Spain have been published. A report on Nigeria is imminent.