Networking group aims to help women reach legal high in City

Five young lawyers from London have begun a campaign to reduce the number of talented women “checking out” of their legal careers in a new attempt to end male domination at the top of the profession.

The women, all in their thirties, believe that a long-hours culture and lack of flexible working in City law firms is forcing some of their colleagues to give up on their careers before they reach partner level.

They fear that other talented women are also opting out unnecessarily because of a fatalistic belief that the barriers to progress in London’s legal world are too great.

To tackle the problem — highlighted by statistics showing that only about 30 per cent of partners at London’s top City law firms are women — they have set up a new networking group.

The group, called Women in Law London, will aim to provide talented female solicitors with contacts and mentoring to help them progress. It already has 1,200 members.

Sascha Grimm, the group’s chairwoman, said that the idea had been prompted by the absence of networking opportunities for women lawyers at “associate” level, one step below partner.

“We wanted to set up a network for younger women because the statistics show that it’s after five or six years of qualification, when women are in their thirties, that lots of people start dropping out,” she said. “That’s when they are starting to have families. It’s a traditional industry with a long-hours culture, there’s a perception that it can’t be done. Our aim is to break down those internal barriers by giving our members the chance to network with other women who have become partners to find out how it can be done.”

Ms Grimm, an associate solicitor at the London firm Edwards Wildman Palmer, said that the new group also hoped to change attitudes among law firms’ clients and persuade them that both female and male lawyers could deliver a good service through flexible working. Other issues such as the “gender pay gap” would also be tackled.

The other founders of the group are Ellen Hughes-Jones, also from Edwards Wildman Palmer; Sophie Bragg, an employment solicitor at Mishcon de Reya; Suzanne Szczetnikowicz, a senior associate at Shearman and Sterling; and Fatema Orjela, from Kirkland and Ellis.

Research published by the Lawyer magazine has found that only three of London’s top 20 law firms have promoted a woman to partner level during each of the past seven years. Only one firm, Irwin Mitchell, has an equal balance of men and women at partner level.