The legal profession has changed dramatically over the past century. When women were first admitted to practise law in the UK in 1922, they were entering a profession historically shaped by male career paths and expectations. Today, women represent a substantial share of the legal workforce and dominate many entry-level cohorts. Yet this progress is less visible at the most senior levels of law firms, where leadership roles continue to be disproportionately held by men.
According to a 2023 study by the SRA, women make up 62% of solicitors in the UK, compared with men’s 36% (with 2% not disclosing their gender). Despite this clear female majority in the profession overall, representation at the most senior levels remains uneven: SRA law firm diversity data reveals that women account for 37% of all partners and just 32% of equity partners. As discussed in our article last year, Breaking barriers: Women in law through history, this highlights an enduring gender gap at equity partnership grade, despite the strong representation of women at the trainee to junior associate level.
In 2022, the SRA found that 15,120 female students had been accepted onto undergraduate law courses, with 6,440 male students – a dominant female-to-male ratio that has grown rapidly since the 1990s. With such a high number of women studying law, successfully securing training contracts and qualifying as solicitors, an important question emerges: what happens at the point of partnership selection?
Though it is widely believed that women leave law due to motherhood or other caregiving responsibilities, the issue often comes down to retention after maternity leave; if statistics prove that women are not precluded from entering the profession as trainees, it calls into question whether this longstanding disparity between men and women in senior legal positions is simply a residual outcome of a previously male-dominated legal landscape.
After the world was forced to adapt its usual working practices and move its office presence online, sceptical partners witnessed the success of working remotely on a global scale. If it wasn’t feasible for female lawyers to work remotely before the pandemic-induced shift to hybrid working, requests for flexible working could now reasonably be considered, in light of its effectiveness during this period. The transition also challenged the assumption that increased home working must necessarily hinder progression towards partnership.
Greater flexibility in working patterns may be particularly valuable during the transition back to work following maternity leave, a period that many firms identify as a key point of attrition for female lawyers. As the profession continues to debate the long-term balance between remote and in-office working, flexible arrangements may offer one way of supporting lawyers through this stage without interrupting long-term career progression.
This is especially relevant in a profession that typically offers parental leave policies providing between 18 and 26 weeks of leave, depending on seniority and tenure, and generally ‘relie[s] on an informal approach’ to handling pregnancy and maternity. While these provisions represent important support, the return to demanding billing targets and partnership-track expectations can still present challenges. The question for many firms is therefore not simply how to support lawyers during leave itself, but how to ensure that returning professionals are able to reintegrate and continue progressing in their careers.
Some firms are already experimenting with more structured approaches to parental support. For example, firms such as Lewis Silkin have introduced enhanced parental leave policies designed to support both mothers and fathers, while Foot Anstey recently announced an inclusive parental leave policy offering six months of full pay regardless of gender.
Initiatives such as these reflect a broader shift within parts of the profession: recognising that family-related career pauses are a normal part of working life, and that well-designed parental policies can play an important role in retaining experienced lawyers and supporting long-term advancement within the profession.
The question is not simply why some women step away from partnership-track roles, but how the structure of legal careers interacts with the realities of modern working lives. Maternity leave is a routine career interruption across many professions, yet in environments where progression is closely tied to continuous billing performance and long hours, even short absences can have disproportionate long-term effects.
As law firms compete to retain experienced talent, many are beginning to reconsider how career progression is structured, particularly during the years when many lawyers start families. Policies that support reintegration after parental leave, alongside greater flexibility in working arrangements, may play an important role in ensuring that the growing number of women entering the profession are equally represented in its future leadership.
Ultimately, addressing this imbalance is not only a question of fairness but also of sustainability for the profession itself. With women now forming the majority of entrants to the legal profession, retaining and developing that talent will remain a critical priority for law firms in the years ahead.
