A wonderful group image captured my imagination in November 2013 – it was a photograph of the partners of City law firm Herbert Smith (now Herbert Smith Freehills), dating from 1982, marking the firm’s centenary at Grocer’s Hall in London. In the middle of the group of 50 or so men, there was a blue-clad woman – Dorothy Livingston, the first and only visible female partner of the firm. Of course, this tells the story of its day – not dissimilar to that of, say, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet photographs, in which she, too, is the only woman.
Many of the leading women in law practising in the ’70s and ’80s would have found themselves similarly lonely in professional circles. To me, this 1982 image, taken within my lifetime, encapsulates
not a long-lost past, but the professional journey of women that are still active in the legal profession today. It made me realise that without hearing more individual voices – past and present – it would be difficult to understand what the future of women in the profession will really look like.
It was the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 which enabled women in the UK to become barristers, solicitors, jurors, and magistrates – roles traditional reserved for men. I set up the First 100 Years to chart the progress of women in the legal profession, across the UK and Ireland, following the implementation of that historic act. The project was soft launched, supported by the Law Society, in March 2014, followed by an official launch a year later, supported by all professional bodies, including the Bar Council, CiLex, and the Magistrates Association.
The project is the first ever dedicated to women in the legal profession and aims to chart their progress over the last century. It is an ambitious multimedia project, looking to make accessible to all, information on women lawyers in a visual, structured, and engaging way. I was keen to develop a unique library of role models, and so, for the last four years, we have been busy creating an interactive and engaging story of professional women which can inspire generations to come, as well as record the progress of women in the profession through interviews.
We have commissioned one hundred videos of women in law, legal trailblazers, and also more contemporary leaders, to in effect create our very own female hall of fame and ensure female role models are visible and can talk candidly about their professional lives. In addition, the collation of as much historic material as possible so we have a timeline showing the progress made over the past century to help frame the diversity debate in a historic context.
It is not just UK women lawyers’ journeys we have looked at and celebrated, however. A year ahead of the UK, 2018 marked the centenary of the Women’s Legal Status Act 1918 (NSW) which paved the way for women to become lawyers for the first time in southeastern Australia. It is worth highlighting, that NSW was not the first state to
allow women to practise law in Australia – that honour belongs to Victoria in 1903, which was followed by Tasmania in 1904, Queensland in 1905, and South Australia in 1911, while the final centenary will occur in Western Australia in 2023. And across the pond, next year marks 150 years since Arabella Mansfield became the first female lawyer in the United States when she was admitted to the Iowa bar in 1869, so it is great we can mark progress on a more global scale.
We have come a long way since 1982 – let alone 1869, 1903, or 1919. Herbert Smith Freehills now counts as many as 100 women partners among its ranks, 21.5% of the total partnership globally and, in 2014, it appointed a woman co-CEO. But women now enter the profession in higher numbers than men and, at the current pace, their progression up the partnership ranks remains painfully slow.
In my opinion, firms need to ask women to be a part of the decision making and not accept anything but equity in partnership. I don’t think salaried partners should exist. That’s where most of the women sit which means not having a voice at the table as a trade-off for job security. Stepping up means
stepping up to reward and responsibility, all at the same
time. Similarly, rainmakers need
to start collaborating more with women and including them in succession planning so women
are also seen as inheritors of lucrative clients.
From the outset, the First 100 Years set out to celebrate the achievements of women lawyers, to provide a positive, accessible, and engaging debate for equality and diversity in the legal profession so future generations are empowered to thrive. We cannot escape the fact that women enter the profession in higher numbers than men and, at the current pace, their progression up the partnership ranks remains painfully slow.
We are constantly preoccupied by the negligible change in the percentage numbers of women at the top of the legal profession, but by setting the debate in a historical context, it is easier to see the rapid rise of women in the profession in the last 30 years, as well as how we can affect change in the future.