The dearth of women in commercial law firms is well documented. Like their efforts to improve social mobility – which were criticised this week by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission – while firms acknowledge the problem and are concertedly trying to fix it, the results are yet to materialise.
Nowhere is the problem more acute than in transactional practices such as M&A, where long and unpredictable hours are harder to reconcile with childcare demands and work/life balance. But you don’t have to look far within the corporate teams of the UK’s largest law firms to find examples of women who have made it work. In our cover story this week both established and up-and-coming female partners discuss the difficulties they face, and how to overcome them.
