Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) has become the tenth major law firm in the UK to establish a gender target, committing to ensure that 30% of the partnership by the end of 2018 are female.
Continue reading “Women in law: BLP signs up to 30% female partnership target by 2018”
Rarely, even in the conservative game of law, has so necessary a measure been so long avoided until the status quo became so laughably, farcically untenable. The move is for major law firms to start articulating public benchmarks for their proportion of female partners – corporate speak for the series of concrete targets announced this year to stem the huge outflow of talented women from the profession.
Continue reading “Comment: Women in law – A belated bandwagon, but still welcome”
Rarely, even in the conservative game of law, has so necessary a measure been so long avoided until the status quo became laughably, farcically, untenable. The move is for major law firms to start articulating public benchmarks for their proportion of female partners – corporate speak for the series of concrete targets announced this year to stem the huge outflow of talented women from the profession.
For years the profession had claimed that meritocracy and changing attitudes would feed through into higher than the circa-20% female partnerships currently at most firms; over the last five years it has become apparent how baseless that conventional wisdom was as gender diversity has barely budged. Indeed, there is some evidence that the two primary tools by which law firms increasingly manage their partnerships – lateral hiring and partner exits – are both favouring male lawyers over women and offsetting any number of women’s networks and mentoring schemes.
Continue reading “Women in law – A belated bandwagon, but still welcome”
Faced with dire rates of female retention, law firms have abandoned previous resistance to public gender targets for their partnerships. Will it work?
It had been a fairly dry debate at the 2013 Georgetown Law panel discussion in London, covering a number of worthy issues facing the profession. Dry at least until near the end, when a Legal Business journalist on the panel told the sizeable audience of lawyers that law firms were perfectly able to function commercially while haemorrhaging female lawyers, the caveat being that if the profession was waiting for economic drivers to solve the gender diversity dilemma, it would be a long wait. The journalist then mentioned that the profession may want to consider more drastic measures.
Continue reading “The Target – will tougher measures finally boost gender diversity in the City?”
Even for the most jaded denizen of the City legal community it’s been hard to avoid noticing the greater emphasis that law firms have put on diversity in recent years. While social mobility was in the spotlight several years ago with the cross-industry launch of PRIME, 2014 has seen a rash of law firms announce concrete targets to improve female representation in their partnerships.
With leading international firms including most of the Magic Circle nailing their gender diversity targets to the wall, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan’s London co-managing partner Sue Prevezer QC and New York-based name partner Kathleen Sullivan spoke to Legal Business about women in law, the US litigation firm’s handle on diversity and its style of doing business. Continue reading “Women in law: Quinn Emanuel’s name partner Kathleen Sullivan and London MP Sue Prevezer QC talk diversity”
With private practice diversity statistics still often trailing their clients, last month saw rhetoric translated into targets at Ashurst and Linklaters, as they became the latest City law firms to commit to a female partnership ratio.
Linklaters is the third Magic Circle firm, after Allen & Overy (A&O) and Clifford Chance, to set itself targets, declaring that 30% of all partner promotions will be women by 2018, while its female management roles will double within the same time frame.
Continue reading “City firms support diversity targets by committing to female partnership ratio”
As Linklaters yesterday (9 June) became the second Magic Circle firm after Allen & Overy to put in place gender diversity targets, senior partner Robert Elliott explained to Legal Business why partners have voted to set a target of 30% of all partner promotions to be made up of women and how they plan to double their female management figure to that ratio by 2018. Continue reading “‘Hundreds of thousands of pounds are earmarked’: Linklaters’ senior partner Robert Elliott talks new diversity targets”
Ashurst has become the latest firm to introduce gender diversity targets, committing to promote a greater percentage of female associates to partner, with a further goal that 25% of equity partners will be female by May 2018. Continue reading “Ashurst on board with diversity targets of 40% female partner promotions and 25% partner ratio”
Set against a backdrop of initiatives including the 30% Club’s drive to improve senior female representation on UK boards, Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) has announced today (13 March) that by 2019 women will make up 30% of its partnership. Continue reading “Diversity – Herbert Smith Freehills commits to 30% female partners by 2019”
