Talking about diversity in law is hard. While there has been widespread progress when it comes to driving up the number of women in law, it is clear there is still much to be achieved with regards to other underrepresented groups. It is a particularly challenging task given both the scarcity of useful data and the related privacy considerations that make it hard to capture.

Put simply, we know there is much more to diversity than the issue of women in law – and that gender is not binary. That said, to ignore the progress women are making in the upper echelons of the legal market (and, in turn, The Legal 500 rankings) would mean we were failing to do justice to those breaking the glass ceiling and the profession more broadly.

According to McKinsey’s most recent Women in the Workplace report, women and female leaders are switching jobs at the highest rates ever. Whether moving to other organisations in search of career development opportunities that are not open to them at their current employer, or in search of a better work/life balance, women are voting with their feet. And the top end of the legal market is no exception.

With the pandemic driving everyone to rethink their approach to work and life, the most recent Legal 500 UK solicitors rankings include countless cases of female partners moving from one firm to another, as well as instances of those making the move in-house or stepping into management roles within their firms.

While, in the past, female partners may have been more reticent to make the jump, there are a host of recent examples of high-profile lateral moves impacting firm and individual rankings, including Allen & Overy infrastructure co-head Sara Pickersgill’s departure to Kirkland & Ellis, Judith Seddon’s move from Ropes & Gray to Dechert and the creation of Boies Schiller spin-off Pallas Partners by high-profile litigator Natasha Harrison. More recently, another in-demand infrastructure partner, Jessamy Gallagher, left Linklaters for Paul Hastings alongside project finance partner Stuart Rowson.

Whether it is because greater recognition means women now have more opportunities to enhance their careers, or that they are simply more comfortable taking these risks, all of this movement at the top end of the market is a great indicator of the strides female lawyers are making in the UK profession, and there has never been a time when women have been so well-represented in law firms or in The Legal 500 rankings.

The number of women with coveted individual rankings in the The Legal 500 London guide – as either leading individuals, next generation partners or rising stars – has never been higher; 38% of the 5,700 individuals ranked in London in our most recent research are women. Given the effort that The Legal 500 has made over the last few years to recognise talented women within our rankings and, in turn, to play some part in boosting their profile in the wider market, it is a statistic that is gratifying to see.

But the flipside (from a purely The Legal 500 perspective) is that in a profession where women are still inadequately represented at the most senior level, even as the number of ranked women climbs, the rate of growth cannot consistently move in the same direction.

Retirements or in-house moves can have an impact on our efforts to boost female representation. So too can the fact that, in many instances, the pipeline of new contenders for our individual listings simply is not there to ensure our figures move in the right direction year-on-year.

While the total number of women we rank grew last year, the rate of growth slowed, with the percentage of women in our rankings edging up a nominal 1% on last year’s figure of 37%.

And, while 70 of our London rankings saw an increase in the proportion of women included within our individual lawyer listings, the number of practices that saw the percentage of ranked women stay static or decline was not that far off this figure.

In total, 46 London practices saw the proportion of women ranked fall year-on-year, while a further ten stayed static.

The practices with the best and worst year-on-year change

This year in London we ranked lawyers across 129 unique practice areas, with 5,700 individuals spread across the Hall of Fame, Leading Individual, Next Generation Partner and Rising star categories.

Practices that saw a very small year-on-year drop in female-to-male ratios include core areas such as M&A and litigation. In reality, this equates to only one or two female partners fewer than the previous year.

Only ten practices out of 127 in London saw the percentage of women drop by 5% or more, and it is notable that these were mainly smaller practice areas, where percentages are more easily skewed by changes in the number of ranked lawyers.

Over the two years since we started tracking the gender of the lawyers in all our London rankings, we have made significant progress, with the current figure of 38% women significantly up on the 2020 equivalent, when just over a third of the then 5,000 lawyers ranked in the capital were female.

And, in core City practices, that progress is greater still when compared to our rankings from four years ago. For example, the 2018 London M&A rankings included only four women – there are now more than 60 across all three value bands, representing almost 40% of those ranked.

In the most recent research, a full 16 London practices saw the percentage of women included in the rankings increase by 5% or more year-on-year, with hedge funds, customs and excise and social housing all seeing this figure increase by more than 10%.

The firms with the most ranked women 

Customs and excise and social housing also top the list of practices with the greatest representation of women ranked, with women making up three quarters of all ranked individuals in both practices.

In total, 27 of our London practice areas have now achieved male/female gender parity when it comes to individual lawyers. Some of the practices with the highest percentage of women ranked include areas where female representation is traditionally strong, such as clinical negligence, family, immigration and employment, but competition litigation and white collar/corporate crime are also now close to a 50/50 split.

Many core City practices have now reached the critical 30% marker and even notoriously male-dominated areas – such as high value private equity – are now only a couple of percentage points off this benchmark when looking at lawyers of all levels of seniority.

Premium M&A and high-value litigation have seen the percentage of women ranked increase by 7.5% and nearly 4% over the last two years, meaning women now make up 38% and 33% of each respective ranking.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, sport, non-contentious construction, transport finance and venture capital are among the worst performing practice areas for gender balance within our lawyer rankings.

 

The regional perspective

For the first time, our 2023 UK research measured the gender breakdown of our individual lawyer lists outside London. Our analysis demonstrated that the percentage of women ranked was higher outside the capital – helping to drive up our overall representation of women in the UK research.

Women account for 45% of almost 5,800 individual lawyer rankings across 445 practice areas outside London, a figure which helped to increase the overall proportion of women in our UK-wide individual tables to 42%.

The best performing region when it comes to the percentage of women ranked is the South East, where 401 of the 748 lawyers ranked (54%) are female.

This is closely followed by the North on 49%, East Anglia on 48% and the South West on 47%. At the other end of the scale, in Northern Ireland, Guernsey and Jersey fewer than 40% of all ranked lawyers are female.

The best firms for ranked women

When looking at firms with at least 20 ranked UK lawyers, Bindmans has the highest percentage of women with 81%, followed by Moore Barlow (71%), BDB Pitmans (70%) and Penningtons Manches Cooper (69%).

Looking only at London-ranked firms with at least 20 individuals, Bindmans is joined by strong performers such as Kingsley Napley (68%), Bates Wells (67%), Russell-Cooke (57%), Forsters (57%) and Irwin Mitchell (57%).

Other large firms with an impressive gender mix include Withers (56%), Pinsent Masons (53%), Charles Russell Speechlys (46%), Mishcon de Reya (46%), DWF (46%) and Addleshaw Goddard (45%).

 

Ethnicity

While we are pleased to have made so much progress in recognising women within our rankings, it is clear that there is still much to be done on ethnic diversity. The primary obstacle here is the pipeline of talent within law firms itself, as well as the number of minority lawyers being put forward for consideration as leading individuals. Our rough estimates suggest that just 5% of all ranked UK lawyers are minority ethnic. This figure rises slightly at rising star and next generation partner level but not much. The London rankings are slightly more ethnically diverse than the UK as a whole, but we would estimate that the average figure is still under 10% when looking across lawyers of all level of seniority within our rankings.

At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, we still need your help to improve the diversity of our rankings further. As things stand, we are unlikely to be able to formally measure anything beyond binary gender data, but that does not mean that making our rankings more inclusive in all ways is not important both to us and the wider profession.

As a listing of the best lawyers in the country, we can only reflect the talent that exists at the top end of the legal market itself. We do not have targets or quotas, and every lawyer in our ranking is there on merit alone, having demonstrated roles on market-leading work and secured the recognition of peers and clients alike.

Where firms can help us is by making sure that you are including a diverse selection of candidates for us to consider – but the name alone is not enough. We need to see evidence of their client base and the quality of the work they are taking on. We also need positive client feedback, so please do make sure that you have included client referees for those you are nominating who are likely to respond favourably on their behalf.

Measuring and talking about diversity in the legal profession is undeniably hard, but it is an ongoing conversation that needs to happen – and we are keen to keep pushing things forward.