Report: Predatory barristers using LinkedIn to trawl for sex

The former Labour deputy leader and ex-chair of the party conducted an independent review into bullying, harassment and sexual harassment at the English bar, commissioned by the Bar Council after a 2023 survey revealed rising levels of misconduct.

Her final report, published yesterday, found “systemic sexual harassment and bullying” within the profession, a cohort of “untouchables”, and a climate in which junior barristers feared that reporting misconduct would be “career suicide”.

“Often the same senior members of the profession who are happy to sexually exploit junior members will later complain that those junior members ‘slept their way to the top’,” she said.

Lady Harman highlighted how LinkedIn was being misused to harass younger colleagues. “It should be made clear that it is serious misconduct to trawl for sex on Linkedin,” she said. “Women barristers and those seeking pupillage should be able to use it without being subjected to predatory trawling. Linkedin is meant to be a professional network, not a dating app.”

One case study described a recent graduate who received a LinkedIn connection request from a barrister offering mentorship and trial experience. He later invited her to court, sent her trial papers and offered to drive her there. Before the trip, he began messaging her about her appearance, prompting her to cut off all contact. The woman told the review: “The whole profession felt so alien to me. There is lots of information on how to get pupillage but there needs to be more clarification as to what is legitimate … This experience put me off law for two years. It was the only interaction I had had with the bar.”

In total, more than 170 written submissions were received. Respondents described being groped, propositioned, sexually harassed, shouted at and bullied to the point of tears and insomnia.

Examples included a pupil told by a clerk in her first week that she needed to sleep with him, a junior clerk groped by a silk who asked about her underwear, and a student approached by a barrister offering to fund her studies in return for an “intimate relationship”.