EWJ June 2024 web - Journal - Page 78
ICAEW signs Equal Representation
for Expert Witnesses Pledge
ERE initiative urges commitment to fair representation and equal opportunities following
concerns about the low numbers of women appearing as expert witnesses.
ICAEW has signed up to an initiative to boost female
representation among expert witnesses, after it
emerged that women were appointed as sole expert
witnesses in just 10% of cases requiring an expert
during 2022.
witness for about 30 years. In all those years, I've
rarely come across other female expert witnesses.
That was ringing alarm bells in my mind.
“We’re asking people to help to drive that change by
signing up to the ERE Pledge. We know there are no
magic wands for this. However, it’s about increasing
the visibility of female expert witnesses and raising
awareness of the issue.”
The Equal Representation for Expert Witnesses
(ERE) initiative was conceived by Kathryn Britten,
Partner and Managing Director at AlixPartners, and
developed with input from experts across dispute resolution, including lawyers, following concerns about
the low numbers of women appearing as experts. It
officially launched in 2022.
Repeat work
Britten says research conducted last year suggests that
only 10% of the dispute resolution cases worldwide had
female sole expert witnesses in 2022. “And yet when females are appointed, they go on to get a lot of repeat
work. So, it’s about getting over that initial hurdle.
The initiative encourages individuals and organisations involved in all forms of dispute resolution to sign
up to the ERE Pledge, which has been designed to
address the challenges faced by women who work - or
aspire to work - as expert witnesses worldwide.
“Lawyers tend to go back to experts that they’ve used
before, so it’s a chicken-and-egg situation for all experts, male and female. It’s about thinking beyond
who you’ve used before and picking the right person
for the job. We want women to have equal opportunities to get this work. Our objectives eventually are
to achieve parity,” Britten says.
Signatories agree that women should be appointed as
expert witnesses on an equal opportunity basis and
commit to several actions to improve the visibility and
representation of women as expert witnesses.
Britten hopes that the initiative will encourage more
women to aspire to be expert witnesses in their chosen
professions, while also giving them better opportunities to achieve their goals. In doing so, the ERE initiative aims to widen the pool of expert witnesses
available and enhance the reputation of expert
witnesses.
Fair representation
They include ensuring that women are fairly
represented across all spheres of the profession, including rosters and lists of potential expert appointees. Signatories also promise to collate gender
statistics for appointments and make them publicly
available, and provide support and mentoring to
encourage women to pursue expert appointments.
“The bigger the pool of expert witnesses, the more
likely you are to have the right expert. But also, it’s
only right that the diverse population going into disputes has a diverse pool of experts providing evidence
for the people who are making the decisions in their
disputes,” Britten says.
“Senior experts can do a lot to help change this,
because they will be the ones who tend to speak with
the lawyers and who engage experts. We have to be
prepared to invest in our women so they can learn
and see how the process works and gear them up to
be ready to step up at the right time,” Britten says.
Thousands on board
There are already 1,543 signatories, including 136
signing on behalf of their organisations. The full list is
published on the ERE website and includes accountancy firms EY, Grant Thornton and Mazars.
Expert witnesses help a court, a judge, an arbitrator or
a tribunal to make their decision by bringing an unbiased opinion, usually in an area that’s outside the
specific expertise of the judge or arbitrator.
Britten, who is an ICAEW Council member and past
Chair of ICAEW’s Forensic and Expert Witness Community, said the objective of the ERE Pledge is to create a coalition of supporters and advocates in the
world of dispute resolution: “I qualified as a chartered
accountant in 1979 and I’ve been acting as an expert
EXPERT WITNESS JOURNAL
The ERE Pledge has been created to be a sister pledge
to the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge,
which has been highly effective since its inception in
2015, calling for – and seeing – an increased proportion of women appointed as arbitrators.
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JUNE 2024