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Anonymous @13:50

You are almost there. You quite rightly say that "I will pick the best person for the task at hand, as judged by my own experience". The problem is that solicitors, unconsciously or not, are picking barristers of certain characteristics for certain cases. Whilst believing that their choice of barrister is solely based on who will do the best job a solicitor might actually be unconsciously importing irrelevant characteristics such as race, gender, age, sexuality, or appearance into their decision. For example, the article suggests that there is at least an unconscious bias towards male barristers for "heavy fraud, terrorism and murder trials". If that bias was removed more women might be selected.