Legal profession's most powerful among members of men-only Garrick Club

Some of Britain's most powerful judges, including a serving member of the supreme court, along with about 150 leading barristers, are members of the Garrick Club, which has repeatedly blocked attempts to allow women to join.

- Amelia Gentleman

The roll call of the legal profession also includes five appeal court judges, eight high court judges, dozens of serving and retired judges, current and former ministers in the Ministry of Justice and numerous senior solicitors.

The Garrick gentlemen's club has close association with the legal profession, but the full extent of those ties has never previously been made clear. Members say senior judges gather regularly at the club's communal dining table. "Business is not meant to be discussed in the club but it is," one former member said.

The memberships of judges from England and Wales, revealed in a Guardian investigation, provoked anger from female lawyers.

Helena Kennedy, a barrister and Labour member of the House of Lords, said: "We should be outside the door with banners. It should be mentioned to senior level judges, who are supposed to promote fairness and equality, that it's not appropriate to be in a club that does the opposite." The first female president of the UK supreme court, Brenda Hale, has previously expressed shock at how many eminent judges are members of the Garrick. She said judges "should be committed to the principle of equality for all".

Christopher Bellamy, a Conservative peer and justice minister, is a member alongside his Conservative colleagues Robert Buckland and Michael Gove, both former justice secretaries, and the former attorney general Dominic Grieve.

Several of the country's most senior judges are members, including the supreme court judge David Richards, the appeal court judges Julian Flaux (head of the chancery division), Keith Lindblom (senior president of the tribunals), Andrew Moylan, Peter Coulson and Charles Haddon-Cave (chair of the independent inquiry on Afghanistan).

Garrick members often argue that they gain no professional advantage from membership because rules prohibit using the club for work.