Pay inequality is still a major problem in the legal industry and will be fought by a new campaign.

A Law Society survey found male solicitors earn £19,000 a year more than females, and white solicitors earn £10,000 more than black and minority ethnic counterparts.

It is joining forces with the Association of Women Solicitors (AWS) to try to even the pay scale.

A two-year equal pay campaign has been launched aimed at drawing attention to inequalities of pay, explore its causes and suggest potential solutions.

The survey found the median yearly salary for male solicitors was £60,000 compared to £41,000 for females - a median pay gap of 32 percent, although this goes down to 7.6 percent if factors such as grade, PQE, region, size of firm worked in, breaks taken, hours worked and area of law are taken into account.

Fiona Fitzgerald, Chair of the AWS, said: “The legal profession is becoming more and more female. 60 per cent of last year's intake of solicitors were women and 43.4 percent of practising certificates are now held by women. However, to take private practice as an example, only 21.8 percent of women solicitors are partners, compared to 49 per cent of male solicitors.

'The pay gap demonstrates not only that many women are not equally rewarded for equal work, but most significantly, that women are not making the progress through the profession that they should.“

The survey also looked at ethnicity. The median earnings were £50,000 for white solicitors and £40,000 for BME groups - a median pay gap of 20 percent. After taking account of gender, grade, firm size, region, PQE and hours worked BME solicitors earned, on average, 17 percent less than white solicitors.

Sailesh Mehta, chair of the Society of Asian Lawyers, added: “The whole profession should be concerned to bridge the wide gap in income between BME and white lawyers. The 17 percent gap is likely to increase in the near future, as more BME lawyers feel the disproportionate effects of the LSC's squeeze on income.”