The first woman High Court judge in the Commercial Court made a crucial career decision as a schoolgirl in the 1960s, when she was surprised to hear Lord Scarman’s “dinosaur-like views” on women barristers.

“Leslie Scarman gave a speech day lecture at Roedean,” Mrs Justice Gloster recalls. “He was frightfully dismissive about women barristers, surprising given his reputation as a liberal. He talked about Russia, where he’d met a lot of women advocates. He thought they were absolutely horrific: masculine and aggressive. He said that women shouldn’t go to the Bar — much better if they went off to be matrimonial solicitors. So I thought: I’m going to go off to the Bar.”

But that was another world, entirely unrecognisable to modern lawyers. Or is it? The pace of change at the Commercial Bar has been almost glacial since Gloster last wore her Roedean gymslip. Browse through the list of leading commercial silks in Legal 500 or Chambers & Partners and one fact is striking: they’re nearly all men. In the Legal 500, only two women make the grade out of a total 120 silks; Chambers manages to list three. Only one woman appears in the top 50 of both: Barbara Dohmann, QC.

Dohmann, a former chairman of COMBAR, is “disappointed” to be the only top-rated female commercial silk. She, too, has learnt to ignore the siren voices. When looking for a tenancy in 1973, she was told by one prominent head of a commercial chambers: “We cannot afford to run a mare.” At the end of pupillage, even her progressive pupil-master, Anthony Lester, QC, counselled her husband: “Barbara should change her name to Mrs Mercer and become a solicitor because nobody is going to use her.” When Dohmann took silk in 1987, colleagues continued to warn her that she would not get any work.

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New in silk at Brick Court Chambers and “destined to be in the Lords”, Helen Davies, 38, is part of a generation of women who seem ready to redress the balance. “I was sent a letter saying I was the 200th female silk appointed. That’s staggering,” she says. “When I arrived in at the Bar in 1991, there had only been 49 female silks.”

The Commercial Bar is a long way behind its counterparts in the City. More than 20 per cent of Slaughter and May’s partners, for example, are women. One critical factor, says Dohmann, is the level of stress and aggravation. “There is so much confrontation, which is unnecessary, but boy, is it there.” She points to the very large sums involved and aggressive competition. “The work is more masculine,” she says. “I’ve often been treated as an honorary man. People see me as very tough. How many women are really tough — or want to be?”

Rebecca Sabben-Clare, a successful insurance and shipping junior, says: “You can be feminine and successful at the Commercial Bar — you don’t need to be aggressive to succeed.” Recently part of an all-female team of five lawyers, she believes that “women make stronger friendships: it mutates into practice”.

At 34 Sonia Tolaney has already built a strong reputation as a leading commercial junior. “When I started, a young woman was not necessarily the expected image of the commercial barrister,” she says. “With high-quality clients, if you do the job that is the only thing they care about.” And her reaction to aggressive male barristers? “Let them get on with it. Barristers are prima donnas in all sorts of different ways. You need to be tough.”

The hours can also be tough. Tolaney confesses to starting at 8am and often finishing at midnight, Monday to Friday. At weekends, she works all Saturday and some of Sunday. “It’s worth it,” she says. “It’s incredibly satisfying, massively worthwhile in self-esteem and career development.” She confesses to working harder than her QC husband, who “understands things like cancelling a holiday or working on holiday”.

Sabben-Clare takes a similar view. “We all work hard when we have a big case on,” she says. “I’ve always thought one of the big advantages of the Bar is that you can take as much holiday as you want without counting the days. I’m passionate about scuba diving and go at every opportunity.”

Davies, meanwhile, thinks it important to take ten weeks’ holiday a year.

So why do a significant number of women give up? Tolaney says that some find it isolating to be stuck in their room all day. “In commercial chambers, you can be sitting drafting something for days as a junior,” she says. “It can be quite dry. You don’t have much of a social life whereas trainee solicitors have the most wonderful time.” Then there is motherhood. “All my friends who read law are solicitors or they have given up at the Bar, mainly because of children.”

Gloster adds: “Is there a problem if you take time off to have children — well, yes there is. I took four weeks off for one child and two months for the other. It would have been difficult to get back into the competitive swim if I’d taken longer, although attitudes are becoming more flexible.” For many she believes that there is a real career choice: “A lot of women quite rightly take the decision that they would rather give up for their children — a reality that will continue.”

Davies, the mother of two small children aged 5 and 3, was concerned about the effects of her six months’ maternity leave, away from practice. “When I came back, the cases I had been working on were still chugging along. I was as busy as before straight away.” Acknowledging her “very supportive” partner, Mark Brealey, QC, a fellow Brick Court silk — they cover for each other when needed — she manages to see plenty of her children.

Tolaney doubts that she would fall behind if she took three months’ maternity leave. “A number of solicitors have said to me: ‘If you do have a child, we’ll make sure it’s fine’.”

So who most inspires the commercial female stars of tomorrow? Davies, Tolaney and Sabben-Clare all agree: Jonathan Sumption, QC. Whereas Tolaney admires him “from afar” and Sabben-Clare says that he is “without equal”, Davies has been “very fortunate” to have been led by him several times. “He never ceases to amaze me,” she says.

Acknowledging that the Commercial Bar is behind the curve compared with other professions, Tolaney suggests that women will make up 25 per cent of commercial silks in 10 years. Until recently, Sabben-Clare says, there were few women coming in at the bottom. “The position has changed dramatically in the past few years. Women are now applying in numbers.”

Gloster is optimistic: “Women have now got every chance and there isn’t a glass ceiling,” she says. “There has to be an appreciation by women that if they want it, they can go and get it. The Bar is terribly meritocratic.”

Davies articulates a point that may soon be reached: “The sex of a barrister is ultimately something that will not be an issue which anyone comments on.”

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