BLM is most female friendly firm in UK top 50
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Berrymans Lace Mawer (BLM) has the highest proportion of female partners among the top 50 UK firms by turnover, with 35 per cent of its partnership made up of women.
Terry Renouf
According to research carried out by The Lawyer the firm had a total of 110 partners during the 2008-09. Of those, 39 were female.
Senior partner Terry Renouf said that this was partly as a result of the firm’s focus on defendant insurance work, which allows for greater flexibility in time management.
“We don’t do transactions, we don’t do M&A,” he said. “The bigger cases are very much about project management, it’s bringing together expert witnesses and barristers and there’s probably a greater degree of control over the work we do [than at some firms].”
Several of the firm’s senior managers are women, including London head of professional indemnity Charlotte Capstick, who also sits on the remuneration committee.
The availability of part-time working arrangements is often seen as critical in improving female retention and promotion rates. BLM has offered the option of part-time working to all of its partners - including its 54 equity partners - for several years.
This comes as Allen & Overy (A&O) has become the latest firm to offer part-time working arrangements to all of its partners in an attempt to improve female retention rates (21 January 2010).
Some 15 per cent of the firm’s partners were women last year, ranking it 38th in the top 50 by number of female partners.
Geoff Fuller, an A&O capital markets partner who chaired a steering committee at the firm charged with putting together a proposal on part-time working, said it was “very clear that there was overwhelming support for some form of part-time working” among the partnership.
However, not all firms with part-time working arrangements already in place scored highly. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, where an estimated 1.5 per cent of the partnership works part-time, came in at 45th. Twelve per cent of all partners at the firm were women.
Among the top 50 firms by revenue Ince & Co had the smallest proportion of female partners. Nine of the firm’s 85 partners were women, the equivalent of 11 per cent, while 12 per cent of equity partner were women.
| Firm | Total partners | Total EP | Total female partners | Total FEP | % of partnership | % of equity |
| Berrymans Lace Mawer | 110 | 54 | 39 | 15 | 35 | 28 |
| Beachcroft | 135 | 84 | 44 | 25 | 33 | 30 |
| Shoosmiths | 109 | 37 | 35 | 6 | 32 | 16 |
| Withers | 107 | 52 | 33 | 16 | 31 | 31 |
| Irwin Mitchell | 112 | 55 | 34 | 11 | 30 | 20 |
| Hill Dickinson | 151 | 53 | 41 | 5 | 27 | 9 |
| Charles Russell | 100 | 45 | 26 | 7 | 26 | 16 |
| Halliwells | 154 | 42 | 38 | 8 | 25 | 19 |
| McGrigors | 83 | 47 | 20 | 12 | 24 | 26 |
| Trowers & Hamlins | 109 | 25 | 26 | 6 | 24 | 24 |
| Nabarro | 135 | 95 | 32 | 21 | 24 | 22 |
| CMS Cameron McKenna | 190 | 122 | 45 | 24 | 24 | 20 |
| Mills & Reeve | 87 | 58 | 20 | 10 | 23 | 17 |
| Olswang | 101 | 62 | 23 | 11 | 23 | 18 |
| Salans | 181 | 75 | 40 | 20 | 22 | 27 |
| Eversheds | 350 | 150 | 76 | 22 | 22 | 15 |
| Denton Wilde Sapte | 181 | 86 | 39 | 17 | 22 | 20 |
| Addleshaw Goddard | 182 | 111 | 39 | 18 | 21 | 16 |
| Berwin Leighton Paisner | 184 | 84 | 39 | 12 | 21 | 14 |
| Field Fisher Waterhouse | 124 | 41 | 26 | 5 | 21 | 12 |
| Kennedys | 117 | 40 | 24 | 5 | 21 | 13 |
| Bird & Bird | 192 | 72 | 39 | 15 | 20 | 21 |
| Watson Farley & Williams | 79 | 57 | 16 | 9 | 20 | 16 |
| Pinsent Masons | 283 | 116 | 57 | 10 | 20 | 9 |
| Slaughter and May | 131 | 125 | 25 | 23 | 19 | 18 |
| Dundas & Wilson | 79 | 79 | 15 | 15 | 19 | 19 |
| Lovells | 349 | 240 | 66 | 39 | 19 | 16 |
| Hammonds | 180 | 73 | 34 | 11 | 19 | 15 |
| DLA Piper (Emea) | 595 | 188 | 108 | 17 | 18 | 9 |
| Ashurst | 221 | 144 | 40 | 21 | 18 | 15 |
| Stephenson Harwood | 87 | 43 | 15 | 4 | 17 | 9 |
| Wragge & Co | 112 | 112 | 19 | 19 | 17 | 17 |
| Norton Rose | 264 | 171 | 44 | 26 | 17 | 15 |
| LG | 83 | 45 | 13 | 9 | 16 | 20 |
| Clifford Chance | 637 | 368 | 96 | 51 | 15 | 14 |
| Osborne Clarke | 114 | 56 | 17 | 9 | 15 | 16 |
| Linklaters | 513 | 428 | 76 | 57 | 15 | 13 |
| Allen & Overy | 490 | 372 | 72 | 52 | 15 | 14 |
| Herbert Smith | 238 | 137 | 34 | 14 | 14 | 10 |
| Clyde & Co | 150 | 87 | 21 | 9 | 14 | 10 |
| Macfarlanes | 75 | 52 | 10 | 3 | 13 | 6 |
| SJ Berwin | 170 | 98 | 22 | 16 | 13 | 16 |
| Burges Salmon | 70 | 51 | 9 | 3 | 13 | 6 |
| Holman Fenwick Willan | 114 | 61 | 14 | 4 | 12 | 7 |
| Freshfields | 444 | 417 | 54 | 51 | 12 | 12 |
| Simmons & Simmons | 232 | 134 | 28 | 10 | 12 | 7 |
| Taylor Wessing | 280 | 152 | 32 | 11 | 11 | 7 |
| Barlow Lyde & Gilbert | 88 | 77 | 10 | 8 | 11 | 10 |
| Travers Smith | 63 | 46 | 7 | 6 | 11 | 13 |
| Ince & Co | 85 | 50 | 9 | 6 | 11 | 12 |
(data refers to 2008-9 financial year)
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Readers' comments (19)
Jude | 27-Jan-2010 5:06 pm
Interesting to see a cluster of insurance firms at both the top and bottom - why do some of these score better than others?
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Yaldara | 27-Jan-2010 5:06 pm
Interesting research. It proves that the transactional excuse is a red herring, there are plenty of firms with 20% women partners which do corporate work, look at Cameron MCKenna and Nabarros.
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Anonymous | 27-Jan-2010 5:08 pm
Why is Simmons so far down the league? Partners will be wondering whether all that focus on social factors rather than bringing the bacon in has really been worth it
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Jimmy Two Times | 27-Jan-2010 5:15 pm
Yaldara's right. This has smashed that corporate myth. The likes of Freshfields might have to start pulling their finger out on this.
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anon | 27-Jan-2010 6:02 pm
Is this anything new?
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Sheila | 28-Jan-2010 9:45 am
Sometimes you wonder what the point is of all this lip service paid to the golden goose of 'Diversity'. These numbers are still shockingly low on the whole, and it seems that all these schemes to encourage more women, ethnic minorities etc to stay at work are more about placating the media than about actually helping those in the firm.
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Anonymous | 28-Jan-2010 11:55 am
Why have you illustrated this story with a picture of a man?
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Anonymous | 28-Jan-2010 5:03 pm
Can't we have a different story please? Who cares who is partner and who isn't? There is no agenda against women or whoever in these firms - all they care about is whether you bring in the fees. Period. Move on.
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Anonymous | 28-Jan-2010 5:55 pm
All very politically correct an' all that, but the fact is that part-time working is a complete pain an the assterix. I always used to recruit the best candidate - man or woman and ended up with 65% women. Most of whom got pregnant, of course, disappeared for months on maternity leave when they reached partnership (or, for those who couldn't hang on, senior associateship), then wanted to do part-time work, In many cases, three days work for three-fifths of the pay for two fifths of the work they used to do. That is the reality : let's not kid ourselves. And yeah, yeah, will get pilloried by wimmin lawyers, but we all know the truth.
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puddle | 28-Jan-2010 6:09 pm
funny seeing all the shipping firms at the moment - you can just imagine them all necking yards of ale while talking about football, boats and pirates - no place for a bird!
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