Women solicitors believe flexible working damages career

Many women solicitors believe their careers will be damaged if they take up more flexible working arrangements, a large-scale study has revealed.

A survey of 800 women solicitors conducted by King’s College London together with the Association of Women Solicitors (AWS) found that half of women lawyers considered that solicitors who took up flexible working were ‘viewed as less serious about their careers’.

The study found a very high level of job satisfaction among women solicitors, with 80% saying they experienced ‘real enjoyment’ in their jobs, and more than three-quarters saying they were ‘deeply committed’ to their work. However, half of those questioned felt they worked ‘too many hours a week’, with 41% working more than 48 hours both in the office and at home. Some 96% of women lawyers said they wanted a career that allowed them to integrate their work with their personal and family life.

One in three women solicitors were dissatisfied with their opportunities to work flexibly, with senior associates, associates and assistants more likely to be dissatisfied than partners or women in senior professional support roles. Half of those surveyed said they felt lawyers who made use of flexible working were viewed as less serious about their careers, and 44% said flexible working had a ­negative impact on promotion prospects. Women lawyers who made use of flexible working arrangements were less satisfied with their careers and perceived significantly fewer opportunities for promotion, as well as more job insecurity.

Around 40% of respondents were currently using some kind of flexible working arrangement, with 28% working reduced hours, although 40% of these women still felt they were working too many hours a week.

Survey author professor Janet Walsh said: ‘There is a perception among some women solicitors that law firms pay lip service to work-life policies… If law firms wish to avoid higher levels of burnout and dissatisfaction they need to look carefully at the issue of women’s career progression.’

Meanwhile, the new AWS chairwoman Christl Hughes, a family law partner at Leicestershire firm Barlows, told the Gazette this week that women solicitors in the provinces face more ‘outdated sexist attitudes’ than their City colleagues, including a belief among clients that ‘solicitors should be men’. ­Hughes said she would be supporting women lawyers in smaller firms outside the big cities during her tenure.

• See also 'Discrimination debate – the trials of being a woman'