It has been described as the ultimate old boys' club, an elite bastion of a very formal male establishment. But the Faculty of Advocates passes a significant milestone next week with the arrival, for the first time, of as many female trainees as male ones.

Over the previous 20 years, the ratio of “intrants” starting their nine-month training at the Bar has generally been three or four males to every female. One year in the early 1990s, the intake was 19 men and one woman.

The percentage of women joining more recently has varied between 35 and 40 per cent. This autumn's intake, however, is a near 50-50 split.

It may take some time for the equality in numbers to filter through to the top. The Scottish Bar is small, with 462 practising members of whom 110 - or 23 per cent - are women. Amongst the 96 silks, or QCs, the percentage of women is only 16 per cent.

“I think the intake figures are a very promising sign for women in the business,” said Claire Mitchell, an advocate who came to the Bar in 2002. “The Law Society estimates that by 2011 there will be more women than men in the legal profession, and no doubt at some time it will reflect in a 50-50 split at the faculty as well.”

This year saw another milestone passed when, in May, an all-female bench of judges sat for the first time in a civil case - Lady Paton, Lady Smith and Lady Dorrian. It is 12 years since Scotland appointed its first female judge, Lady Cosgrove. Of this year's intake of 200 students at the University of Glasgow, 123 are female. At Edinburgh, the breakdown is 60 per cent female and 40 per cent male.

Ms Mitchell, 37, said she thought women brought special skills to the business of advocacy in particular. “I think women are natural communicators and mediators.”

She pointed out that as much of the process of her job was in behind-the-scenes mediation as it was in court.

“The court process is adversarial but prior to getting there, there's a lot of work mediating - discussing pleas or resolving civil cases in order to settle before they go to court. Quite a lot don't reach a court setting, but if they do, I don't find that women lack the adversarial bite of their male colleagues. Men don't have the monopoly on being adversarial. The numbers show that the aptitude of women is now being recognised.”

One advantage for female advocates is that they are self-employed and, if they have children, are better able to adapt their working lives to suit. “The Bar is very pro-woman in that sense,” said Ms Mitchell, who came to advocacy not through the traditional private school route but through the state comprehensive system. “It gives them opportunities to address their work-life balance.”

The first woman to be admitted to the Scottish Bar was Margaret Kidd, in 1923. By 1948 when she became the first woman in the UK to become a KC (King's Counsel) she was still the only woman advocate. She was a practising advocate until 1974.

When Lynda Clark, now a High Court judge, became a QC in 1989 she was only the third woman to reach that level of the Scottish legal profession. Valerie Stacey, QC, was elected the first-ever woman Vice-Dean in 2004 and stood for election as Dean. Whatever happens in the future, things will never be as bad as they were for the first female member of the Bar Council in England, who died earlier this year at the age of 99. Hannah Wright planned to work in the Chancery division, and joined Lincoln's Inn.

But she had great difficulty in finding a place in chambers. Invariably, the answer was: “Sorry, but there is no lavatory for you.” Eventually she reapplied, promising always to use the public lavatories across the road in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and was accepted. She was called to the Bar in 1931.

As one staff member of the Faculty of Advocates - where the ladies facilities are said to be “very nice” - commented: “I guess things have moved on, at least slightly.”

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