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June 5, 2014

News article

Women in the legal sector: Where are all the female partners?

Jun 05 2014 Karen Hiaainbottom

Although the number of women entering the legal profession as trainees now exceeds the number of men by roughly 30 percent, the same ratio unfortunately does not hold true when it comes to partners in law firms. The average number of women in partnership in a typical international law firm is roughly 12 to 15 percent, the same level as 10 years ago. Why are there so few women in partner positions in the legal sector and how does the sector need to change to improve gender diversity at partner level?

The progress of women into partnership positions in the legal sector appears to be moving at a glacial pace, even though women at trainee level appear to love the law. According to the Law Society's Annual Statistical Report from 2013, women account for 61 percent of law firm trainees in England and Wales. Within City firms, women make up 56.5 percent of Karen Higginbottom

traineeships. Yet according to Legal Week, women hold fewer than 20 percent of the partnerships at the top 30 UK practices, while at leading City firms fewer than 16 percent of the partners are women.

The legal sector's track record is no worse than the accountancy sector, where women make up only 14 percent of partners in big four accounting firms, but the fact remains that the legal sector attracts a far larger percentage of women than accountancy and yet has an incredibly low number of women at partner level.

In December 2012, the 30% Club published a report entitled "Shifting the Needle" which explored why there were so few women partners in 17 UK professional service firms, which included 10 law firms. Only 15 percent of partners were women in the 10 law firms that participated in the project, compared with 17 percent in accounting/consulting firms. Yet women represented 54 percent of trainees at law ifrms compared with 47 percent of trainees in accounting/consulting firms.

Inconsistent approach to diversity

A key finding of the report was that attrition was not the root cause of the lack of women in partnership. The report attributed the slow progress of women into partnership roles on inconsistent approach to diversity at all levels in ifrms. It questioned the partner promotion process, which both men and women believed might not evaluate ability, and the differences between men's and women's perceptions of being a partner and the process toward promotion. The report revealed that men were 10 times more likely to be promoted than women to partner level from the same cohort.

The legal sector has a very poor representation of female partners among professional services firms, Susan Vinnicombe, professor of women and leadership and director of the International Centre for Women Leaders at Cranfield School of Management, said. "Consulting and auditing firms come out in front but law ifrms are just not interested in it. The issue is not just that women are leaving at every single level but the significant attrition of women at senior level is put down to the fact they don't see it as an opportunity."

Presenteeism and lack of flexible working hours

Sasha Scott is the director of Inclusive Diversity and runs unconscious bias training for City law ifrms. "Some law ifrms have good ifgures, with women at 30 to 40 percent at partner level, but these firms tend to be regional. These firms are much more lfexible with their working hours and allowing women to manage family and work commitments," she told Compliance Complete.

Scott viewed the culture of long working hours as a major barrier for women attempting to reach partner position. "It's also about a culture of presenteeism. The legal sector is a transactional business which makes it difficult to stay with a flexible working approach. It's especially hard to work lfexibly in corporate practice."

Scott said, however, that it was not simply about a culture of long working hours. She said that a major obstacle to women's progress to partnership was the unconscious bias from men that women would not be able to do it. "We are working with leadership teams in law firms on unconscious bias and just as importantly working inclusively with men and women to change the cultural mind set."

The culture was far tougher in law firms than in other professional services firms, Vinnicombe said. "There are

shocking expectations that when a woman has a child she is expected to stay at home with the young child and is not offered lfexible working. The whole structure of work (where lawyers bill by the hour) means it's challenging across law. The way that work gets measured and done needs to change."

There were clear disparities between what the professional sevrices firms said they did and the actual reality of the situation, according to the 30% Club report. For example, more than 75 percent of the professional services ifrms have women's networks in place, yet only 55 percent of the women surveyed felt well-connected to people at senior levels. Three-quarters of the firms reported that they monitored gender differences in appraisal processes whereas the research found a clear imbalance in promotion rates between men and women.

Sponsorship

Vinnicombe said that sponsorship was hugely important for women aspiring to partner positions. "You need a huge amount of partners willing to step in and sponsor you as a partner otherwise you don't stand a chance. As a woman, you have to have those conversations with partners and there has to be recognition that there is capacity for another partnership in a particular area. You have to build up your business case in your sector and separately you have to build up your personal case."

Scott said that there had been attempts by the major law firms to address the dearth of female partners. "The attitude to women partners is shifting and there is a lot of interest in unconscious bias training and there are lots of women's groups within law firms."

Vinnicombe agreed that there was a gradual shift within the legal sector towards supporting women into partnership roles. She cited an example of a law firm where the managing partner and a number of senior partners were sponsoring potential female partners. "Senior partners who are primarily men are listening to those women's experiences. Why do you have to rush to be a partner? Do you need to be a partner in eight years? This situation won't change unless senior partners understand the issues that women face and the pattern of women's lives."

The consequences of law ifrms failing to focus on ways to increase the number of female partners were severe, Vinnicombe said. "It's a complete waste of talent ... [given that] women dominate law. What is driving change is that law ifrms are being criticised by clients for not putting up diverse teams. A number of law ifrms have really picked this up."

Case study: Walkers

Walkers is an international financial centre law firm with offices in British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Dubai, Dublin, Hong Kong and London. Walkers has very high gender diversity statistics compared with City firms, with 33 percent of the company's partners being female. They also have a global managing partner who is female. In addition, its management committee is three-quarters female with two out of eight office managing partner roles around the world held by women.

Walkers has recognised the important role the family plays in the successful lawyer's career and has provided a variety of support, from laundry pick-up and car cleaning on site, to various family events such as sports and social programmes. "As we're headquartered in the Cayman Islands, all of our trainees are Caymanian and we've a healthy 50/50 split between male and female trainees," Inga Masjule, global executive head of HR at Walkers, told Compliance Complete.

"However, when we talk about experienced lawyers (three years post-qualification experience) who join us laterally, we've recently had a higher percentage of women joining us than men.

"We're very fortunate to have strong role models of women partners in leadership roles in Walkers and many women leaders at the top and that, in addition to top-level work and work-life balance, in my opinion, inlfuences the decision of many female associates when choosing what firm to join."

Masjule said that Walkers' management committee acted as the firm's diversity committee. "As global head of HR, I work with them to address the main underlying issues and barriers to women's success [through initiatives] such as annual diversity training sessions, providing a supportive environment to network and supporting women's organisations, such as 100 Women in Hedge Funds," Masjule said.

In addition, Masjule said, Walkers provided a formal mentoring programme for men and women, and new hires were mentored from day one. She said that there were plenty of role models for women aspiring to become partners at Walkers.

Masjule said she thought that the biggest barrier to women reaching partner position was dissatisfaction with work. "Women also tend to downplay their abilities and accomplishments more than their male counterparts," she said.

. Karen Higginbottom is a freelance journalist who writes on employment issues for The Guardian and People Management magazine. She has written on a diverse range of topics, from transexuals in the workplace to bullying bosses.

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