Lawyer Monthly - Women In Law Special Edition

46% of women in law believed their gender played a role in causing them to miss out on a raise or promotion 2 eystone Law operates with a focus on innovation, achieved through a flatter organisational model to better recognise, retain and promote talent across their business. While many law firms talk about diversity, Keystone Law has taken proactive, organisational steps to encourage diversity across their business. With the top 10 law firms in the country employing an average of 18.5% of females at partner level, Keystone Law is a leading example in the industry of a much more diverse workforce with 40% of female lawyers, edging towards 50% in the next year 1 . Women in Law The statistics show that women are still underrepresented across the legal industry, and that gender continues to impact on a lawyer’s career progression hopes. In a survey by McKinsey, 46% of women in law believed their gender played a role in causing them to miss out on a raise or promotion 2 and 61% of women believed that their gender would make it more difficult for them to progress in their careers 2 . The problem can often start with a gender imbalance at partner level within firms. “It’s important that the people responsible for recruiting new lawyers look at their own perceptions and biases – are you recruiting and promoting in your own image?” says Michelle Last, Employment Lawyer at Keystone Law. “Often the people at the top of a firm don’t reflect the junior levels of a firm, because despite the gender balance when joining a firm, more men are being promoted (by men) to partnership level.” While there are still more men in senior positions within law firms across the country, the good news is that the industry is listening and responding, with the top 100 firms in the UK recruiting more females than males each year at trainee level to try and redress the balance and ensure more women progress to senior roles 1 . Flexible Working Cited as one of the most significant barriers to women progressing across all industries, flexible working is now enabling more women to move on in their careers. However, more agile working practices require the technology to be in place to allow workers to connect seamlessly with their companies’ systems, resources, applications and files. More dynamic communication and collaboration tech is now enabling flexible working to become much more prevalent across the legal industry, with more and more companies allowing staff to work to more flexible schedules, from home or on the go. Solutions such as Microsoft Office 365, secure cloud hosting, NetDocuments and outsourced dictation/typing in the cloud (via Document Direct) are now giving lawyers the ability to access emails, documents and financial information from anywhere. Flexible working plays an important role in attracting and retaining a diverse workforce. In a recent survey, 45% of women working in law believe that prioritising a work-life balance would jeopardise their success in a firm, while 16% thought that showing commitment to their family would negatively affect their career progression possibilities 2 . Being able to access applications and client data at home, on the go, or at client sites with the same experience as working in an office, means that flexible working K 61% of women believed that their gender would make it more difficult for them to progress in their careers 2 WOMEN IN LAW EDITION LAWYER MONTHLY 59