The legal market has much to be proud of when we talk about
equality. But today let’s just focus on gender. We have more women than men at
law schools and that carries through to numbers qualifying as a solicitor. We
should celebrate that on International Women’s Day. But let us also have no
truck with complacent arguments that the problem is solved and that women
lawyers will achieve equality at partnership level as those women move up the
professional ladder. The reality is that the percentage of women declines the closer to partnership, where the numbers remain
simply not good enough.
I don’t know how many times I have seen the legal press take
PR stories from law firms celebrating that, for example, three out of eight new
partners are women and that is an increase on last year. Let us be clear: all
other things being equal, each time a firm appoints more men than women to
partnership then the gender balance just got worse. And let us not be
distracted by law firms saying that this is a problem for society and they
cannot change that. Remember, law firms are recruiting record numbers of women
– and often more women than men. Something happens inside law firms which means
that the attrition rate for women is much higher. That is because of what
leaders of law firms do consciously or unconsciously.
Law firms make the retention and progression decisions for
their workforce. Are firms really saying that among those they recruit they
cannot develop an equal number of men and women as partners? This is a
leadership issue.
Leaders create the culture and set the values. Too many
leaders talk about focusing on merit or not lowering standards just to deliver
equality. That reveals the hard truth that too many just do not get it. If it
was a merit based system do they really think that the highest echelons of the
legal profession remain predominantly male? When I am told that positive
discrimination doesn’t work I think to myself ‘well it worked for men’!
Great leaders value their teams and
colleagues. They talk to them and, more importantly, they listen to them. They
invest in them as individuals: coaching, mentoring and empowering them. They
push decisions and work to the lowest appropriate level rather than suck it up
to the highest available level. They create an environment where diversity is
valued, where difference is celebrated and where talent is uncovered and
nurtured. Great leaders don’t have a single idea of excellence or merit – they
never buy into lazy gender stereotypes and they challenge themselves everyday
to enable their people to be better than they themselves are. Whether it is
working patterns, work allocation, client relationships, team social activity
or who gets most of their time, leaders need to work hard to truly value
difference.
So back to the legal profession and, in particular, to
improving women’s routes to partnership. The liberalisation of the legal market
will support some change. New entrants to the legal market bring ideas and
experience from other sectors that can help the legal profession improve. In
ABS, ownership is more widely distributed beyond senior lawyers and this can mean new ideas and diversity at the top of firms. The Solicitors Qualifying
Examination might make a difference on diversity – but only if firms choose to
use the flexibility to recruit and invest in talent differently.
In the end leaders create the businesses they
want to create. If they really value diversity then it needs to be their
personal focus – not something they talk about but something they place
alongside the most important two or three priorities in their role. On
International Women’s Day lets see every law firm leader make a public
commitment to delivering diversity. We can start with gender but let’s also
remember that there are other diversity issues to focus on too. Change starts
with me and you.
