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Just over 100 years ago, the first woman qualified as a solicitor. That was Carrie Morrison who was admitted to the roll of solicitors on 18 December 1922, closely followed by Maud Crofts, Mary Pickup and Mary Sykes.

Since those early pioneers began their legal careers, incredible progress has been made with more women entering the legal profession than ever before. Women now outnumber men, making up 53% of practising solicitors and twice as many women as men apply to study law.

Despite this progress, women are still unrepresented at the top of the profession. Only 31% of partners in private practice and 18% of KCs are women. Only 30% of judges in the High Court and above are female and the Supreme Court is once again back to just one woman justice out of 12.

Women also face a significant gender pay gap – found that at the current rate of progress it would take 86 years for women working in the law to achieve pay parity.

There is no doubt that legal businesses and in-house teams are becoming more conscious of the need to better reflect society and of the benefits a more representative workforce can bring. Serious efforts are being made to redress the balance but the legal sector continues to be held back by the traditional partnership structure and a working culture that is stuck in the past.

Role models

There are many women who are blazing a trail and building on the legacy of those who came before them. There are women leaders out there committed to supporting other women and advocating for a more equitable legal profession for all.

We recently saw the historic handover of the Law Society presidency from one woman to another, from a “first” – I. Stephanie Boyce, the first person of colour – to another “first” – Lubna Shuja, the first practising Muslim. She is the 178th president of the Law Society but only the seventh woman to hold office.

Throughout her tenure, Ms Boyce focussed on breaking down barriers, challenging outdated stereotypes and holding doors open for people behind her to follow. Her mission, she said, was “to leave the profession more diverse and inclusive than the one I entered”.

Diversity in leadership sets the tone for the whole organisation. Women who make it to the top, according to a , are twice as likely as senior-level men to spin their careers. A lack of visibility serves to reconfirm existing biases and exacerbates imposter syndrome, whereas visible role models at all levels demonstrate what is possible. Rather than pulling up the ladder behind them, good female leaders should take every opportunity to shine a light on their own experiences as well as championing other women in law.

We are excited to champion the future female leaders in law once again who are shaking things up and changing the legal profession for the better. Do you know someone who is building on the work of all the female legal pioneers who went before us, and opening doors for the future generation of lawyers?  for our Women Who Will 2023 report.

Inclusive workplaces

There is no one size fits all when it comes to working environments. Those firms and organisations which encourage a better work / life balance for all employees, both male and female, and those with or without caring responsibilities, will be the ones that foster more diverse teams.

Post-pandemic, the rise of flexible working forced organisations to adopt new ways of working that have been hugely beneficial.

The long hours culture of the law has always been a sticking point for those with family commitments, leading many women to seek alternatives to private practice at associate level and some to leave the law altogether. Whilst the majority of firms and legal teams now offer hybrid working, there persists a ‘inflexible flexibility’ at top firms in particular, driven by perceived client demand, the tyranny of the billable hour and a focus on inputs rather than outputs.

We have to be more innovative. That means training management to manage a flexible workplace in a positive way. We need to give lawyers options, with remote working, hybrid working patterns, job shares, part-time work, compressed or staggered hours as well as the option of flexitime.

Moving away from historically rigid workplaces will allow us to shape more diverse and productive teams.

New routes into law

Challenging the convention that there is only one route into a legal career, with a linear path from training to leadership that takes place between the ages of 21 and 50, plays an important part in improving diversity in the profession. Both the apprentice route to qualifying as a solicitor, and the SQE, were introduced as a bid to increase accessibility, diversity, and social mobility and CILEX has for many years provided a route into the law for those who did not go to university.

Embracing those who have taken these different routes into the law, as well as career changers and returners who have taken career breaks, will benefit women and improve diversity across the board.

A hundred years since the first women solicitors embarked on their careers, true equality remains a struggle - the pay gap remains stubbornly in place, female partner numbers are only edging up ever so slightly and women are leaving the workplace – or deciding not to return - under the pressure of huge childcare costs. There is still some way to go before the profession truly gets to grips with this problem.

Yet, I am heartened to see so many more women demanding the playing field is levelled once and for all. A new generation of women leaders are emerging, taking the reins to push for the change they want to see. With the ability to attract and retain talented lawyers crucial to the success of most law firms and legal teams, the need to create more inclusive working cultures will only become more urgent.