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A long way to go – supporting women in law in 2017

Lucia Sandin

08 Dec 2017

McKinsey & Company recently published Women in Law Firms – a first-of-its-kind report that covered how law firms are addressing the gender diversity issue and the challenges which women face in order to progress in their legal careers.

The launch event was held at Thomson Reuters’ New York headquarters, where leaders from three global law firms joined Susan Taylor Martin, President of Thomson Reuters Legal and Executive Sponsor of the Thomson Reuters Transforming Women’s Leadership in the Law initiative, to discuss the results.

The study involved over 200 participants from 23 North America law firms and is a decisive first step in improving transparency around how law firms improving diversity. More specifically, it explored the experiences and perceptions surrounding female representation, promotion, attrition and diversity programmes, as well as senior level support.

Strong start, weak finish

Despite women representing almost half (46 percent) of the entry-level attorneys across all three associate levels (junior, midlevel, and senior), only 19 percent become equity partners and a quarter take executive leadership positions. For women of colour this is even less; they account for 10 percent of associates, but only 4 percent of managing partners. Women are also almost twice as likely to leave and are less preferable for external hiring at partner/counsel level – small wonder that women report low expectation levels when it comes to making partner.

Career success versus personal life

One of the biggest hurdles to career success seems to be difficulty in forming the right work-life balance. Only 44 percent of women believe they can have both, versus 60 percent of men. Women and men seem to face the same top two hurdles to making partner, but while women found work-life balance to be the number one reason, for men it is mainly the inadequate benefits for the personal costs of more professional responsibility.

All the firms surveyed offer part-time or reduced scheduled work, however all attorneys worry that participating in these programmes will negatively impact their career. The main reason for women seems to be the inability to generate billable hours during time off, which doesn’t help when, even during working hours, women feel that they have fewer networking opportunities with clients than men.

On the surface

Compared to other industries, law firms seem to be ahead of the curve in implementing policies and programmes that aim to reduce bias in recruiting and promotions. Close to 90 percent of law firms (versus 66 percent across the rest of the companies surveyed) have hiring strategies that target minorities, and 83 percent have programmes that aim to improve promotion rates for women. All firms also offer part-time or reduced working hour options. How then do we explain the fact that 60 percent of women in law firms still believe their gender will limit their advancement opportunities?

Different perceptions

While law firms are taking steps to address the issue of gender diversity, whether it’s by offering relatively good maternity and paternity leave and emergency childcare services, something is going wrong in the communication or execution of these programmes. There also seems to be a difference in perception of the effectiveness of these efforts. Most men think that diversity is a priority for the firm (62 percent) while most women don’t (36 percent), however both agree that the commitment to gender diversity has not been well communicated by the partners.

The road ahead

There is no denying that serious efforts have been made to advance gender diversity in law firms, but as Susan Taylor Martin highlighted at the report’s launch event, ’we have a long way to go’. Accountability, measurement and coaching were identified as the key areas of improvement for law firms. If progress isn’t measured, and partners are not held accountable, the perception and reality is that the efforts won’t be as effective. Ticking the boxes by having these programmes in place is not enough. Also, there is little point of having these programmes in place when people fear to take advantage of them. It therefore comes down to a change in perception, which would need to be part of a wider cultural shift.

To access the McKinsey & Company’s report, Women in law firms, please click here.

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