Chatting with a male managing partner recently about – what else – the hire of Kirkland’s debt superstar Neel Sachdev into Paul Weiss in London, talk eventually turned to the Barbie movie (obviously).
With the managing partner intending to see the film soon, I ask him to report back on whether he thinks its messaging is as anti-male as many critics have suggested. His reaction? ‘Isn’t it about time something was not all about how great men are, for a change?’ This is an interesting point, and segues us nicely into our cover feature this issue on the City’s standout women dealmakers, five years on from our influential ‘Alphas’ analysis.
While it would clearly be facile to suggest that all the societal ills preventing females from getting to the top of their game in the most competitive and lucrative product lines in elite law have been cured, it is striking how the industry appears to have evolved to the good in relatively short order.
‘Rock star’, ‘true leader’ and ‘proper, proper lawyer’ are just some of the superlatives applied to women in our latest analysis on the women operating at the very top of dealmaking. It is encouraging that, while parity in the number of women compared with men in the most senior ranks has still yet to be achieved, the language being used to describe them has become far more androgynous.
Also heartening is, not only how much more forthcoming the women we interviewed have been to talk about their achievements, but also how much more championing of them the men have been.
Denise Gibson (pictured), Allen & Overy’s eminent leveraged finance co-head, points out, when ‘Alphas’ was published five years ago, ‘there was quite a lot of eye-rolling going on; everybody had gender fatigue’. That is fair as far as it goes, but overkill on gender equality initiatives does not forgive the outright hostility with which several male rainmakers met with the concept of such a feature (let’s not forget, it was deemed a ‘bollocks idea’ by one, while some of the standout women were dismissed out of hand as ‘useless’).
Perhaps it’s the uptick in female law firm leaders that has made the haters realise women mean business, or it might be that the unconscious bias training has finally sunk in, but the males come across as much more content to cede some of the glory to their excellent female counterparts.
Five years ago, it was almost unheard of for highly-sought-after women to move firms, often largely due to a sense of loyalty, but also because the male approach of overpromising and under-delivering in the lateral market was not a game the understated women were prepared to play.
The numerous women who have now advanced to new heights in their careers prove that the mobile star phenomenon is no longer the preserve of the men, of the Sachdevs of this world. Perhaps the recruiters have finally wised up to how women tend to downplay their talent, or maybe the women are better at justified self-promotion. Either way, it seems to be working. And male deal stars, this feature isn’t about you for a change, but don’t worry – you are ‘Kenough’.
nathalie.tidman@legalease.co.uk
See our ‘Alphas revisited’ feature and profiles of women deal stars