Top girls

The fact that there are more women in the legal profession than ten years ago is hardly a revelation. However, in terms of proportion of women to men, the profession is going backward. Though some law firms remain reticent to reveal the ratio of male to female partners and employees, 75% of LB100 firms did provide numbers. They show that only 15% of equity partners and 22% of all partners are female. In 1995 an LB survey of 35 top firms revealed that 25% of all partners were women.

During the past decade, the ratio at junior level has begun to balance: 45% of assistants in 1999 were female; today women make up 53% of non-partners, according to LB surveys . It is generally assumed that motherhood is getting in the way of partnership, but many women have proved that it is possible to combine the two. And not necessarily following the example of the inimitable Elizabeth Barrett, Slaughter and May’s ferociously driven head of litigation, for whom the longest of four maternity-leave periods was two and a half weeks.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given their standing in the profession, none of the women interviewed for this feature said they were aware of a glass ceiling. Nor, for the most part, were they subjected to outright sexism in careers that stretch back in some cases nearly 40 years. Indeed, the feeling is that female lawyers don’t have to put so much pressure on themselves to fit in with expectations these days, though past experiences differ. Claire Milton, a Berwin Leighton Paisner partner, says: ‘Nowadays you don’t have to behave like a bloke; you don’t have to wear rigid clothing.’ Juliet Blanch, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery, goes further. ‘You don’t have to look like a tart any more. I was once sent home for wearing a trouser suit,’ she recalls. Blanch emphasises the point that, in the past, women had to believe in themselves. ‘I never made the mistake of trying to be more boyish than the boys, or be the biggest bitch. I learned quickly that you could be true to yourself and succeed,’ she says.

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