Yet even that achievement came with two stings.
One was that juggling work and childcare remains difficult – something noted in the legal sphere in my previous blog post in relation to flexible working.
The other sting was women are still under-represented at the top of companies, as only 5% of women were the bosses of Britain’s largest companies.
How are the leaders of the legal profession leading the line?
Here the Law Society plays a key role. The Society has travelled far from the days of Kamlesh Bahl, having long comprehensively drawn a line under that matter.
Since then, the Society has seen its first female President, in Carolyn Kirby, as well as its first female Chief Executive, Janet Paraskeva.
Paraskeva, in particular, can be credited with steering the Law Society through difficult times and into a new regulatory arena – whilst also championing equality and diversity issues within the Law Society.
Kirby’s year as the first female President of the Law Society was followed in due course by that of Fiona Woolf in 2007.
Woolf herself, a past Chair of the AWS, actively championed the issue of the pay gap between male and female solicitors, both as President, and in delivering the inaugural AWS Awards.
With this year’s Vice President of the Law Society, Linda Lee, set to succeed current incumbent, Bob Heslett in July 2010, this trend at the top seems set to continue.
The profession that Lee, together with Kirby and Woolf, have served, is increasingly a female one. Increasingly, law firm leaders are female, too.
The same is true at a younger level. The last two Chairs of the Junior Lawyers Division have been female, as have the last three Presidents of the European Young Bar Association.
In the last 88 years, the number of women in the solicitors’ profession has grown from 4 to 52,000.
Women now account for 45.2% of solicitors and the number of women holding practicing certificates has nearly doubled since 1999, having increased by 86.9%.
However, as Dr Clare McConnell, former Chair of the AWS, noted for International Women’s Day in March, ‘Women solicitors are not making the progress through the profession that they should’.
McConnell pointed out: ‘In private practice, only 21.5 per cent of women solicitors are partners, compared to 41.9 per cent of male solicitors.’
What measures, then, are being undertaken to redress this, given complaints about gender bias at the top of the profession?
In response, the AWS has produced recent survey evidence, to push through evidence for change.
Plus the Society has started to provide firms with practical guidance.
Stephen Ward, the Law Society’s Director of Communications, points to the Law Society Equality and Diversity toolkit, to be formally launched in April.
The kit is accompanied by a set of equality standards and useful information to help firms in embedding equality and diversity in their standard practices.
And the new chairwoman of the AWS is committed to change also. Christl Hughes, of Leicestershire solicitors, Barlows, has pledged to look again at key AWS initiatives.
Hughes will continue to fly the flag for initiatives like the AWS Awards Scheme and the newly revamped Returners to the Law course.
As Christl Hughes, Chairwoman of the AWS says: ‘There is still more we can do. As the economy starts to recover, we must ensure that women solicitors receive the right training and support’.
Ben Rigby
Ben Rigby is a freelance legal journalist, having previously worked as a staff reporter on 'Legal Business' and 'In-House Lawyer' magazines, as well as Bar Editor of the Legal 500 UK. A non-practicing solicitor, he has worked in general practice in Essex and Kent, as well as at the Law Society of England & Wales and the Ministry of Defence.
He is a Past President of the European Young Bar Association and a Past Chairman of the London Young Solicitors Group. Ben has written regularly about issues that affect young lawyers in the EYBA’s magazine, Eurolawyer, as well as for TSG Life, London Lawyer, and YSG Magazine.
Since then, the Society has seen its first female President, in Carolyn Kirby, as well as its first female Chief Executive, Janet Paraskeva.
Paraskeva, in particular, can be credited with steering the Law Society through difficult times and into a new regulatory arena – whilst also championing equality and diversity issues within the Law Society.
Kirby’s year as the first female President of the Law Society was followed in due course by that of Fiona Woolf in 2007.
Woolf herself, a past Chair of the AWS, actively championed the issue of the pay gap between male and female solicitors, both as President, and in delivering the inaugural AWS Awards.
With this year’s Vice President of the Law Society, Linda Lee, set to succeed current incumbent, Bob Heslett in July 2010, this trend at the top seems set to continue.
The profession that Lee, together with Kirby and Woolf, have served, is increasingly a female one. Increasingly, law firm leaders are female, too.
The same is true at a younger level. The last two Chairs of the Junior Lawyers Division have been female, as have the last three Presidents of the European Young Bar Association.
In the last 88 years, the number of women in the solicitors’ profession has grown from 4 to 52,000.
Women now account for 45.2% of solicitors and the number of women holding practicing certificates has nearly doubled since 1999, having increased by 86.9%.
However, as Dr Clare McConnell, former Chair of the AWS, noted for International Women’s Day in March, ‘Women solicitors are not making the progress through the profession that they should’.
McConnell pointed out: ‘In private practice, only 21.5 per cent of women solicitors are partners, compared to 41.9 per cent of male solicitors.’
What measures, then, are being undertaken to redress this, given complaints about gender bias at the top of the profession?
In response, the AWS has produced recent survey evidence, to push through evidence for change.
Plus the Society has started to provide firms with practical guidance.
Stephen Ward, the Law Society’s Director of Communications, points to the Law Society Equality and Diversity toolkit, to be formally launched in April.
The kit is accompanied by a set of equality standards and useful information to help firms in embedding equality and diversity in their standard practices.
And the new chairwoman of the AWS is committed to change also. Christl Hughes, of Leicestershire solicitors, Barlows, has pledged to look again at key AWS initiatives.
Hughes will continue to fly the flag for initiatives like the AWS Awards Scheme and the newly revamped Returners to the Law course.
As Christl Hughes, Chairwoman of the AWS says: ‘There is still more we can do. As the economy starts to recover, we must ensure that women solicitors receive the right training and support’.
Ben Rigby
Ben Rigby is a freelance legal journalist, having previously worked as a staff reporter on 'Legal Business' and 'In-House Lawyer' magazines, as well as Bar Editor of the Legal 500 UK. A non-practicing solicitor, he has worked in general practice in Essex and Kent, as well as at the Law Society of England & Wales and the Ministry of Defence.
He is a Past President of the European Young Bar Association and a Past Chairman of the London Young Solicitors Group. Ben has written regularly about issues that affect young lawyers in the EYBA’s magazine, Eurolawyer, as well as for TSG Life, London Lawyer, and YSG Magazine.
Comments