UK Study Finds Only a Third of Women Lawyers Aspire to Partnership
A study of lawyer satisfaction in the United Kingdom finds that only about a third of women want to become law firm partners.
A Legal Week survey of 4,000 solicitors below the partner level found that only 35 percent of women have a primary career goal of partnership within their firm. The number was much higher for male solicitors; 58 percent had a partnership goal.
“This suggests that partnership as a career motivator for women is rapidly losing traction, which has major implications for how law firms interact with more than half of junior lawyers,” the report (PDF) says.
Twenty-one percent of the women said they were interested in partner alternatives, compared to only 7 percent of the men.
Berwin Leighton Paisner managing partner Neville Eisenberg told Legal Week he thinks there is a demand for alternatives to partnership. “Partner alternatives don’t undermine partnership,” he said. “I think of diversity as a strength, so I see it as strengthening partnership.”
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