In July 1998, Kamlesh Bahl was elected by the members (over 100,000 solicitors are the Law Society) as the Deputy Vice President of the Law Society. The first woman and the first member of an ethnic minority to be so elected.

Law Society of UK spent over £ 2 million to get rid of this principled woman.

This is a true story about a 21st century David and Goliath battle. It tells of how one powerful British institution, the Law Society broke the law to stop one intelligent young Asian woman, Kamlesh Bahl from becoming its leader despite being democratically elected by the lawyers profession. It demonstrates how the Law Society spent over £ 2 million to get rid of this principled woman. It exposes the hypocrisy of the Law Society which upholds the rights of foreign lawyers in their own countries whilst violating the fundamental rights of its own senior Asian woman leader

UK NRI, Dr. Kamlesh Bahl CBE LLD FRIPD


Dr. Kamlesh Bahl CBE LLD FRIPD With a very good school record, Kamlesh went to Birmingham University to read Law. At Birmingham, she was awarded two Law Prizes and also met her future husband, now a General Practitioner near their home in South Hertfordshire. Graduating with a good degree, Kamlesh, after many setbacks where companies were reluctant to employ a trainee solicitor who is female and Asian, joined the then Greater London Council and attended Law School to complete her qualifications as a solicitor.

Subsequently, Kamlesh worked as a solicitor for Texaco, British Steel and Data Logic, before being appointed in 1993 as Chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission. The first person from an ethnic minority grouping to be appointed to that post, she was also the youngest! In total, with a renewed appointment after the statutory three years, Kamlesh spent nearly six years at the E O C, serving while there as a member of the European Commission’s Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men. In 1998, she became its Vice-President. Her membership of ECACEOWM in turn led to her appointment as the European Commission’s representative on a new consultative commission on Racism and Xenophobia in 1994.

In 1997, Kamlesh was created a Commander of the Honourable Order of the British Empire (CBE) and, also in 1997, was appointed as an honorary Fellow of the Institute of Personnel and Development.

In July 1998, Kamlesh Bahl was elected by the members (over 100,000 solicitors are the Law Society) as the Deputy Vice President of the Law Society. The first woman and the first member of an ethnic minority to be so elected.

In addition to the problems she had encountered as an Asian woman in obtaining her first legal post, Kamlesh also experienced racism at – of all places - the Equal Opportunities Commission, but decided, for the good of the EOC, to ignore it. She was, however, surprised and hurt by the institutionalised racism that is prevalent at Law Society headquarters.

When complaints were made against her at the Law Society, Kamlesh, knowing them to be false, took action against the Law Society, because the treatment she suffered was so brutal and out of synchrony with the published ethics of the Law Society. She needed to challenge the established practice and vested interests.

The Law Society’s motto is To Serve Law and Justice, but in Kamlesh’s case justice has neither been given nor has it been seen to be done. Any discrimination is objectionable, but to meet it at the Law Society is extremely shocking.

The vulnerability of the public in its dealings with, for example, medicine and law, is recognised by Parliament, so the Solicitors’ Act gives the Law Society the power

to establish standards, to represent and to discipline solicitors. In a way, the Law Society covers the joint functions of the General Medical Council and the British Medical Association. The Law Society’s function is to make absolutely certain that solicitors keep to the law and to established codes of conduct based on fairness and good practice.

In the twenty-first century, there is a need for recognition that the United Kingdom is multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-religious and that there should be discrimination against no-one. In this area, solicitors should be recognised for their concurrence, their expertise and their fostering of that doctrine. The Race Relations Act, the Sex Discrimination Act and the MacPherson Report show how institutions can act as collective discriminators. That is a feature of history as British institutions have tended to be peopled by white males and it is therefore their values and attitudes that has been instilled into the culture of these institutions over the years.

Kamlesh’s appointment as Deputy Vice President (to lead, after two years, to the Presidency) was on a mandate to reform the Society. A mandate from the Society’s members, who are 90% of the lawyers of England and Wales