Thought leader: And the winner is?

By Joy Kingsley, senior partner, Pannone LLP.

Having been involved in the management of a law firm during three recessions, it is interesting to see whether women are more adversely affected than men in the current unprecedented economic situation.
It is certainly the case that women have made progress in law firms since I qualified in 1980 and became managing partner at Pannone in 1993. In that year, there were only three female managing partners in the top-100 law firms; there are now many more.
However, while more than 50 per cent of new entrants to the legal profession are women, in the most diverse of firms only one third of the owners are women, and on average it is far less than this.
In the early years of managing a law firm, I was asked constantly about the ‘glass ceiling’ and was able to say I had never found one at Pannone: although I was aware of flagrant breaches of equality legislation in other firms, including pregnant female partners who were paid not to return to work. While it is unlikely that would happen today, there must be reasons for the lack of female representation at the top. The position echoes the FTSE 100, where less than 20 per cent have women on the executive board, let alone in leadership positions.
The reasons are not simple – sometimes women choose to give up legal careers for personal reasons at various stages including at partnership level. Some choose not to return to work after maternity leave and others want to ensure their wish for a certain work-life balance is not compromised by the hours and commitment required in the ownership and management of law firms. Nevertheless, it would be simplistic to suggest there are not other factors at work that influence the limited progress that has been made by women in the profession and indeed in the boardroom. While some firms have made a real effort to address the issues of working women, others only pay lip service.
So this brings me to the question of whether the current economic climate will benefit women in the legal profession or hinder them.
One can find some possible advantages. It is regularly being said that men, rather than women, were responsible for the reckless excesses that have caused our current problems. Because of this, there may well be more respect for the more conservative view often offered by women.
Indeed, there seem to have been some key appointments of women in government and industry that reflect this. The UK's leader of the House of Commons and minister for women and equality, Harriet Harman’s wish to add women to the boards of nationalised banks supports this view. Law firms could take the same view, although this has not become evident yet.
Furthermore, the private-client work specialists in law firms are more commonly women than men, and it is in these areas where job losses have been fewer. It may also be that the switch in concentration on the top line to addressing the middle line suits a different mentality and women may come forward to address the changed priorities.
However, there are negatives too. If discrimination against women is still prevalent in any firm, opportunities to make unfair selections for redundancy must exist. In addition to the more obvious discriminatory views, there are other less noticeable ones, such as a belief that married women may be able to better afford the loss of jobs.
It is also probable that more effort may be made to address the needs of women when there is a shortage of lawyers and not when there is a surplus, as at present. However, at some stage lawyers will be in short supply again. And it is for this reason that the firms that continue to support employee engagement, flexibility, reasonable work/life balance and create a place where people want to work, will be those that come out of the recession with their key commodity – their workforce – intact.

Joy Kingsley is senior partner, Pannone LLP. She can be contacted at joy.kingsley@pannone.co.uk