As we publish Legal Business’ second ESG report, the words years ago of a male partner at a Magic Circle firm suddenly returned in a flash. To paraphrase: ‘The problem with City law firms is that they do a big push to keep women, they have a couple of female partners rising through the ranks, they think they have the gender diversity issue fixed. They tick it off the list and move onto the next thing.’
While acknowledging the manifold nuances and difficulties in diversity and inclusion of all kinds, it is disappointing to see how predictable this faddy approach to social progress continues to be.
Rare Recruitment’s Raph Mokades raises a similar point in our ethnic diversity feature: ‘After George Floyd died, everyone said they were very sorry and had solidarity with black staff. That’s not insignificant, but it passes and is reactive. If you’ve got a dataset that is telling you you’ve got a problem, you’re obliged to be proactive and try to understand what’s happening.’
Returning to gender, senior women in the law are not new, as the current wave of influential law firm leaders attests, including Ashurst’s Karen Davies, Georgia Dawson at Freshfields and Linklaters’ Aedamar Comiskey. But when faced with such clear examples of progress, it is easy to get blindsided on how glacial the pace of positive change actually continues to be.
The cycle of big fanfare followed by petering out can also be seen in the fact that only 52% of firms approached bothered to respond to our ESG questionnaire. However, the picture is not heartening for those that did. Admittedly, there has been a slight improvement at the senior end of female partnership, with 39% of respondent firms’ executive committees comprising women (compared with 33% last year) but the rest of the data tells us the same old sad story.
It is a long-acknowledged fact that there is little problem encouraging women to go into law. Women on average now account for 52% of lawyers, compared with 51% last year. It is an increase – especially with incomplete data – that is hardly worth mentioning but illustrates the point of gender equality at the junior level.
It is clear that firms are making up more women than ever, so again, the perennial failure remains around retention.
The fact that the percentage of women partners has remained exactly flat at 27% is the real kicker.
There are some laudable exceptions to this underwhelming trend: Pinsent Masons has the highest percentage of female lawyers (70%); CMS the highest percentage of partners (35%); while 78% of Slaughter and May’s executive is female.
It is clear from the City promotion rounds that firms are making up more women than ever, so again, the perennial failure remains around retention. So much for all these high hopes nurtured during Covid of turning a corner on ESG and lockdown acting as a leveller and a catalyst for diversity and inclusion.
Fundamentally, the only way to know how much you need to improve as a firm is through looking at the data. It is incumbent on us to keep on pushing for it and for you to be totally transparent with it. Gender diversity is not fixed and you know it isn’t.