Revealed: females make up less than 10 per cent of top 100's equity partner ranks
Female partners remain a minority at top UK firms, with just 23.5 per cent of all partners and 9.4 per cent of all equity partners across the UK’s largest 100 law firms by revenue being female.
Among the magic circle, including Slaughter and May, female lawyers constituted 14.6 per cent of total partners and around 13.5 per cent of equity partners in the 2011-12 financial year, figures from this year’s The Lawyer UK 200 have revealed, with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer having the lowest proportion of female partners at just 12 per cent.
“It’s tempting to say that this is because of a 24/7 culture or an ‘all boys’ network, but I think that’s quite superficial,” said King & Spalding partner Suzanne Rab, a former lawyer for both Freshfields and Slaughter and May. “I think it’s more to do with the fact that the legal profession is very slow to change - it changes slower than society. Change normally only happens if it makes business sense - why would a firm in a relatively good position want to change? It takes real courage to change something that may not be perceived to be broken.”
Outside the magic circle, the firms in the top 20 with the highest proportion of female partners are Berrymans Lace Mawer (38 per cent), Irwin Mitchell (30.9 per cent), Kennedys (38.2 per cent) and Shoosmiths (32.4 per cent). The proportions improve among firms ranked 50-100 by turnover, with Manches (45.6 per cent), Pannone (40.8 per cent), Russell Cooke (40 per cent) and Sackers (50 per cent) either edging towards or hitting a 50/50 gender split.
Despite these figures, the equity remains a male-dominated domain. At Taylor Wessing, for example, while 15.7 per cent of the total partnership is female, just 8 per cent of the equity partnership is. Similarly, 8 per cent of Simmons & Simmons’ equity partners are women while 14.2 per cent of its total partners are.
Caroline Rawes, director of human resources and development at Taylor Wessing, highlighted the recent recruitment of Alix Prentice in the firm’s financial institutions and markets group and Amanda Nelson in the private client team as examples of steps the firm is taking to try to redress this gender imbalance, but accepted that there was more to be done.
“We’re aware that female partner numbers for the firm are low and this is an area to which we’ve been committed to improving for some time,” she told The Lawyer.
The figures suggest it is traditional City firms that are finding it the hardest to retain senior female staff, with anecotal evidence suggesting that the masculine atmosphere at such firms can put some women off.
“I saw that women in senior positions had to adopt male attributes to get ahead,” said one former magic circle lawyer who has since left the City. “I didn’t want to change myself to stay.”
However, Avril Martindale, an IP partner and co-head of Freshfields’ London diversity leadership committee, said firms are taking steps to create an inclusive working enviornment.
“Creating an environment in which everyone can realise their full potential and feel that their work is valued is a business imperative for us,” she said. “Like many organisations, and law firms in particular, we still have plenty more to do. There’s still a disproportionate gap between the number of women we’re recruiting at trainee level and the number who make it into our partnership ranks.”
It is a similar picture at Clifford Chance. A spokesperson for the firm said: “Improving the gender balance of our partnership is an important goal for the firm – we have previously stated our ambition that women should make up at least 30 per cent of our partnership. Our priority is to secure a sustainable improvement while maintaining our strongly meritocratic culture.”
Alison Eddy
However, Alison Eddy, who became the first woman to hold a top regional position at Irwin Mitchell when she was made London managing partner earlier this year, said that setting targets for female representation is not necessarily the best way of dealing with gender imbalances within firms.
“In our view, [having a high number of female partners] is not about setting quotas,” she said. “It has to be about identifying the best people, regardless of gender or background, and giving them the opportunities to progress in our firm. More than half of the associates promoted to partner level in the past two years have been female but they weren’t promoted just because they were female. They were promoted based on their strong performance and contribution to the firm. For us, it’s not about who you are or where you’re from, it’s about what you can achieve and what you can bring to our business.”
Irwin Mitchell has recently been given ABS approval as it looks to implement ambitious growth plans. Eddy said the changes in the legal sector mean that there will be more female lawyers than male by 2015 and that firms need to adapt.
For the full data see this year’s The Lawyer UK 200
Bottom 30 firms in the UK 100 by proportion of female equity partners
| Firm | Turnover 2011-12 (£m) | Total partners | Total female equity partners | Proportion female equity (%) |
| Ward Hadaway | 30.00 | 69 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Optima Legal | 22.85 | 12 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Howard Kennedy | 27.80 | 57 | 1 | 1.8 |
| Foot Anstey | 22.88 | 48 | 1 | 2.1 |
| Gateley | 61.50 | 143 | 3 | 2.1 |
| Speechly Bircham | 57.60 | 91 | 2 | 2.2 |
| Weightmans | 77.10 | 151.1 | 3.6 | 2.4 |
| TLT | 44.50 | 68 | 2 | 2.9 |
| Field Fisher Waterhouse | 97.60 | 146.9 | 4.38 | 3.0 |
| DWF | 102.00 | 152 | 5 | 3.3 |
| Holman Fenwick Willan | 123.90 | 127 | 5 | 3.9 |
| Trowers & Hamlins * | 80.80 | 121 | 5 | 4.1 |
| Fladgate | 25.90 | 48 | 2 | 4.2 |
| Farrer & Co | 49.60 | 71.8 | 3 | 4.2 |
| Freeth Cartwright | 36.73 | 91 | 4 | 4.4 |
| Hill Dickinson | 110.10 | 172 | 8 | 4.7 |
| Bond Pearce | 46.50 | 72.21 | 3.36 | 4.7 |
| Clyde & Co | 287.00 | 230 | 11 | 4.8 |
| Parabis Law | 108.00 | 61 | 3 | 4.9 |
| Simmons & Simmons | 251.70 | 203 | 10 | 4.9 |
| Berwin Leighton Paisner | 246.00 | 209.2 | 10.4 | 5.0 |
| Taylor Wessing | 212.50 | 311 | 15.5 | 5.0 |
| Hugh James | 28.50 | 40 | 2 | 5.0 |
| Winckworth Sherwood | 23.90 | 40 | 2 | 5.0 |
| Pinsent Masons | 220.50 | 256 | 13 | 5.1 |
| Ince & Co | 91.60 | 97 | 5 | 5.2 |
| Herbert Smith | 480.00 | 270 | 14 | 5.2 |
| Bird & Bird ** | 235.00 | 230 | 12 | 5.2 |
| Macfarlanes | 102.20 | 70.6 | 3.7 | 5.2 |
| Russell Jones & Walker | 45.00 | 52 | 3 | 5.8 |
* Trowers & Hamlins have 35 female partners, 29.2% of the total.
** Bird & Bird have 53 female partners, 23% of the total.
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Readers' comments (45)
Anonymous | 31-Oct-2012 9:47 pm
Female ex equity partner | 30-Oct-2012 6:45 pm
There is reseach which shows that women (with or without children) get fed up with the culture in law firms (whioh includes all the long hours etc,), not being appreciated, not getting access to the best work and not being promoted when their male colleagues are. So they leave. What a surprise.
No kidding, the long hours kill everyone. Don't know about the other factors you mention - I never saw it happen, perhaps you can link to the research.
I do think it is time for men, and the leadership of law firms, to stick up to this bullying campaign by the feminist lobby.
The truth is that most big law firms are pretty brutal places to work whatever your gender is. That more women choose to drop out of it in favour of other choices shouldn't surprise anyone, as they often have better choices than their male counterparts.
For those who are willing to make the sacrifices their male peers make - no time with the kids, no home life, precious little social life - I don't see how women can't make it.
A lot of this is really special pleading to get women into partnerships just to "balance the numbers", i.e., because they are women.
Pretty sexist, but we all know this campaign at the root isn't about "equality".
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Anonymous | 2-Nov-2012 2:55 pm
The following letter, published in Wednesday's Times this week, on the subject of board quotas is rather au point:
"The misconception that underlies the resistance to imposing boardroom quotas is that there are only a limited number of 'good' (suitably qualified and experienced) women and that quotas will lead to 'poor' (ineffectual) women being appointed over 'good' men.
In reality there are as many cracking professional women as men out there, in ample numbers to fill quotas ten times over. Women will rise to their posts and skill up appropriately as they do now lower down the job market and as men have been doing as they have historically taken up these top posts. The reason for higher ratios of men continually being appointed are rooted in comfort, tradition and unconscious bias, which
quotas are needed effectively to bust."
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Anonymous | 5-Nov-2012 2:48 pm
To Anonymous 31 October 9.47pm
I don't understand what you mean when you say that "we all know this campaign at the root isn't about "equality"".
What do you think it is about?
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Dave Cote | 5-Nov-2012 3:08 pm
"In reality there are as many cracking professional women as men out there, in ample numbers to fill quotas ten times over. "
In this discussion I do not read, nor is the dispute here about whether one could find women with the professional ability to do the work and fill the position.
Rather, do women WANT to do the whole job or prioritize it to the same extent as men have been socialized to. If not, it is not in the firms best interest to promote women over the more compliant men.
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female SA with kids and some ambition | 5-Nov-2012 3:25 pm
Its complicated. The reasons are primarily cultural (and by that I mean gender culture) as well as physiological (women are likely to have far more commitments outside of the office).
Yes women leave the industry in droves on having children. However I am not sure that is particular to law, I believe that is an English cultural thing – in our UK society, if both parents “have” to work past the second child, you are the subject of pity (as in “he can’t be doing very well then, can they if they need two wages?” and the infamous “I don’t know how you do it” said to any FT working mother). I think that in parts of the continent, the opposite is true, ie, an educated woman having a number of children and holding down a successful full time job is something to be proud of – almost a status symbol! (Differences in cost and availability of home-help and childcare in UK compared to wider Europe also a key factor here). The fact that Helena Morrisey CBE has 10 kids sort of proves the point that its not the number of kids that makes or breaks you its more complicated than that.
But outside of that, like many workplaces, law firms are essentially (as proven by this report) a male hierarchy and a man’s world in which success is based on playing the game by men’s rules. That is not to say that women cant also succeed but to do so is trickier (even leaving aside the more obvious differences like having primary care of children). Women cannot “be like a man” – we all know the women who do try this and how it backfires. We have a more limited scope of acceptable business behaviours than our male colleagues and we have to operate carefully within these paremeters, in ways that would more usually be quite alien to the fairly “egalitarian” tendencies of female culture. Many women, frustrated at the difficulty and apparent double standards quit at this hurdle, it just seems too hard – not at the junior levels but in fact at senior associate level, which serves as a “holding pen” for such frustrated female talent. I would like to see more women “accepting” the way it is and getting on with it. And would like to see more value placed on the sort of relationship maintenance, soft selling and “connecting” of networks that many women are naturally very good at.
Quotas are not the answer. Education and talking about the differences will be helpful. As would cheaper childcare and homehelp.
Husbands yes – definitely the sort of husband you have makes a difference. He is either going to support you in your career (by getting you to challenge and push yourself out of your comfort zone) or he is going to give you the easy option (don’t worry darling, why don’t you stay home and bake cakes instead).
Told you its complicated.
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