Inspiring Women: Challenging the diversity deficit - notes for survey participants

This survey is part of a research project being conducted by the Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies. We would like to raise the profile of women whose contribution to law and other women is little known beyond their professional field.

Unlike the wonderful work of the First 100 Years project, our study aims to create an oral history audio archive. We will conduct interviews with up to 50 women lawyers which will last up to 12 hours each. The interview recordings will be deposited at the British Library Sound Archive as a national resource.

Do you know a woman lawyer or group of women lawyers who:

1. Were/are leaders in their field? OR

2. Were/are impactful in their work? OR

3. Supported, encouraged or mentored you in important ways? OR

4. Have had to overcome significant personal obstacles to navigate their way through the law? OR

5. Come from an underrepresented group, or type of practice or area of law less regularly profiled? OR

6. Played a key role in developing new forms of legal practice? OR

7. Have been instrumental in changing the law or the way it is interpreted? OR

8. Helped to develop new areas of law? OR

9. Inspires you for a different reason than those listed above?

We are particularly interested in finding out about the life experiences of a diversity of women lawyers, particularly from working-class backgrounds; those who came to England and Wales as migrants or refugees; women of Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) heritage; from lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer groups (LGBTQ+); women with disabilities, and those working in less well-known areas of law. 

The survey will ask you a number of questions about the woman or group you are nominating and why you have nominated them. After you have submitted the survey, we may wish to contact your nominee to tell her the reason she has been nominated and we will send her the information you have supplied to us. We will not use any information you provide to us in any research outputs without the informed consent of your nominee.

This study has been reviewed by, and received ethics clearance through, the University of Oxford Central University Research Ethics Committee (Reference number: R68721/RE001).

For more information about how the research data will be used please click here. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us directly.

Yours,

Dr Dvora Liberman, dvora.liberman@csls.ox.ac.uk
Research Fellow
Linda Mulcahy, Professor of Socio-Legal Studies Faculty of Law
Director of the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies
Centre for Socio-Legal Studies
Manor Road Building
Manor Road, Oxford OX1 3UQ

To begin the survey click here.