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Law Firm News Stories

Latest partner promotions show women still under-represented in the UK
05 April 2012
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The start of spring heralds announcements by law firms of new additions to their partnerships. But the number of women being promoted in their UK offices remains woefully small.

A whopping six City firms included no women amongst the new promotions. Freshfields and Macfarlanes both promoted five chaps to partnership, but neither could find a woman worth promoting. It was the same story at Olswang and Holman Fenwick Willan, which both gave the nod to an all-male trio. And Ince didn't make up anyone at all in London (although there was one woman amongst its five overseas promotions).

And then there was Slaughters, which welcomed one male associate to partnership in the UK, meaning that its magnificent record of promoting just one woman since, errr, 2009 remains intact. One cheer.

    Slaughters' partnership away day yesterday

But it's not all doom and gloom. Addleshaw Goddard jumped to the top of the table with four new female partners out of a total six. A&O also did well with an even gender split, with three men and three women making the letterhead.

An honourable mention too for Eversheds and Ashurst, which both promoted four women amongst their 11 new partners (36% apiece). And whilst these percentages may not reflect the gender splits lower down the ranks, it's certainly a step in right direction. Especially for male-dominated Ashurst, which between 2009 and 2011 welcomed just two women to partnership.

The table, which will be updated as more results come in, currently looks as follows:
 
Firm
Number promoted in UK
Number of women
Addleshaw Goddard
6
 4 (67%)
A&O
 6
 3 (50%)
Ashurst
 11
 4 (36%)
Eversheds 11
 4 (36%)
Wragges
 3
 1 (33%)
Squire Sanders
 3
 1 (33%)
Burges Salmon
 7
 2 (29%)
Trowers & Hamlins 11 3 (27%)
Hogan Lovells
 8
 2 (25%)
Slaughter and May
1 0%
Olswang
3 0%
HFW
3 0%
Macfarlanes
 5 0%
Freshfields
5 0%
Ince
 0
n/a
 
Here's a full breakdown of the partnership promotion stats, including trainees' chances of promotion.


Comments

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Please keep it nice. Thanks.
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anonymous user
05/04/2012 17:39
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Do you think you could run similar statistics with respect to (a) the promotion to equity and (b) woman with children ?

It would be very useful to know.

Thanks.

Christine
anonymous user
10/04/2012 09:15
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These kinds of female v male partner stats never provide the whole picture. What would be more useful is a comparison of the number of women and men who are potential partner candidates (i.e. 10+ PQE) and the corresponding number made up. The reality is that the balance of male to female associates has shifted markedly over the last couple of decades (with today's appointments reflecting the male/female trainee split 10-15 years ago). There might still be a bit of a discrepancy (due to the number of women who take time out for kids etc) but the current methodology risks leading to postive discrimination where women are promoted over men to make the firm's equality figures look good (rather than due to merit). This benefits no-one.
anonymous user
12/04/2012 11:04
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Its great to see A&O up there as they are doing great things with their part-time partnership programme. Its obviously haveing the desired effect with allowing women to climb the ladder and have a family. (Like Christine below - it would be good to see how many of the A&O women are part time and how many have families.)

Anna Downs
www.theinfluencebusiness.com
anonymous user
12/04/2012 11:17
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In addition to the comments below, this does not take into account how many women actually APPLY for partnership (if at all). A statistic I assume, that ROF would not be able to prise out of the firms.

Children are an irrelevant statistic, all you need to know is how many women actually apply and then how many women are made up (regardless of whether they have children or not).

In case you think this is the ranting of a misogynist - I am a woman (last time I checked).
anonymous user
12/04/2012 11:36
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A statistic around woman's partnership applications/actual promotions would be interesting. The relevance of statistics around which women have families would be interesting as many women who in that situation are reluctant to even apply for partnership as they are unwilling to make the perceived personal sacrifice of long hours away from them. That is why the A&O's scheme is so interesting. Does the fact that it exists in the first place encourage women to make that application when they might not have considered it before?