Legal Industry in the UK

by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Earlier this week, The Glass Hammer reported on a study released by Human Rights Commission in the UK which indicated that the glass ceiling in many industries, including law, was thickening. However, according to The Lawyer UK 200 Annual Report just released, as reported on The Lawyer.com , more women than ever before are rising to the top of UK law firms, with women comprising almost twenty percent of partners in the top 100, although Magic Circle firms have fewer women at the top – just 14 percent of partners in the top four firms – as compared to their smaller counterparts.

So, what is the true state of the legal profession in the U.K.? The Glass Hammer recently spoke with Sara Dixon, the owners of Firm Beliefs, a business consulting firm in the UK specializing in law firms, to find out. Ms. Dixon, herself a solicitor with an MBA, talked to us about the current trends in the legal industry and their impact upon female lawyers.

Do you know of any examples of where women lawyers have been held back in the legal industry in the UK solely because they are female?

Once upon a time, I would have been able to come up with a number of examples but I am hard-pressed to come up with one off the top of my head these days.

But what about that EHRC report out of the UK that indicated that the glass ceiling is now a concrete ceiling, especially over the legal profession?

While that barrier may still exist, I guess I rarely see it because our client firms tend to have performance management programs in place (or, if they don’t at the beginning, the programs are in place soon after we start to work with them).

These programs enable individuals and organizations to perform at their best in such a way as to achieve the organizational goals of the business. So whereas once upon a time performance was only assessed in terms of billable hours (which is difficult if you work part time or have taken time away from work for family reasons), now there are a broader range of goals that can be achieved. If the program is effectively implemented, it ensures that individuals are given the support that they need in order to achieve their individual and organizational goals. And because the performance measures are not necessarily fee target driven in the first instance, there is room for flexibility in terms of goals and means of achieving them, regardless of gender.

For example, I used to hear of women of, say, 8 years PQE who would complain that their male colleagues of 8 years PQE were up for promotion to partnership and yet they were not. With effective performance management programs in place, a woman can see that her 3-year absence on maternity leave over the years means that she is in effect only 5 years PQE in terms of active technical experience. Promotion will be based on achieving goals, not on level of PQE. It may even be that she is still promoted because of her skills in other areas that are not dependent on actual client work if the skills are needed by the firm.

So billable hours are going to be irrelevant? Is this trend seen across the board in the UK legal industry?

Increasingly partnership profit shares are based not simply on billing but also on mentoring, marketing, staff development, contribution to management etc. Proficiency in these areas ultimately leads to greater success for a business as a whole in terms of profitability but by focusing on each individual’s strengths, partnerships are able to ensure that each partner operates to his or her own strengths and, as a group, the skills are shared amongst them.

That is not to say that billable hours will not be considered ultimately as the main focus of performance but organizations are far more aware now of what skills actually lead to those billable hours being achieved. They will focus on those skills as part of the performance management programs of both partners and fee earners. There are certain skills that may well be gender specific (although not necessarily) and, if identified, would enable individuals to operate to their strengths. And of course profits remain key are they are after all raison d’etre of being in a business (unless one joins the not for profit sector).

Do you recommend your clients put any programs in place to support female lawyers specifically? What sort of programs are generally available?

In the UK, we operate within the EU “family friendly” legislative arena – women are entitled to a year’s statutory maternity leave and there are proposals to extend the right to flexible working to parents (of whatever gender) of children under the age of16. Our businesses have had to adapt different working practices to manage the comings and goings of staff members and partners – be they male or female. This is simply good risk management. Law firms always have to manage the risk of business interruption whether by a key partner becoming long term ill, problems with IT, unexpected client departure or, as in the case of our family friendly culture, different working needs and practices of those who deliver the service to the clients.

If firms are to ensure that they are able to fill the roles they need from the talent pool, they have had to make their organizations female friendly. Some have a long way to go; others not. Firms have learned that they shoot themselves in the foot if they do not encourage the return of their female lawyers after maternity leave and the development of their skills within a supportive atmosphere as they continue to climb the corporate ladder. After all, staff come with a cost attached to them; firms have to ensure that they get the best out of their staff if they are to recoup that cost. If they are training and developing good staff, and those staff do not stay with the firm, the firm sees its investment walk out of the door. They ought to be considering making their firms ‘worker’ friendly, regardless of gender.

What other trends are you seeing in the UK legal profession?

Our young lawyers (Generation Y) are opting out of the city practice long hours culture, be they male or female. Or they opt out of corporate life completely and work for the smaller law firms whose partners/owners have specifically identified a working ethos that attracts young men and women who want to benefit from a balanced work/life experience. And some even leave the law as a profession. In our experience, this is not a gender issue – it is a generational, lifestyle issue.

Also, with the opening up of the market in the UK as a result of the Legal Services Act, every law firm will find hitherto unimagined competitors with experience in markets other than the legal profession, who have learned to develop a variety of skills in order to achieve profitability. They may well come from industries far less traditional than the legal services industry, and whose progressive and innovative ways of working, of delivering excellent service, of managing and predicting client needs are all par for the course. Unless the existing law firms in the UK are ready to operate in the same way, those law firms may well find themselves losing much-needed talent to those new competitors. And that talent may be of either gender.