The Association of Women Solicitors (AWS) is to survey all 17,700 of its members in an attempt to identify why female solicitors are paid less than their male counterparts, the Gazette has learned.

The Law Society’s Strategic Research Unit pay survey, published in May, revealed that the average yearly salary for male solicitors was £60,000, compared with £41,000 for women – a pay gap of 32%.

After allowing for variables, including area of practice, career breaks and firm size, the overall salary gap was 7.6%.

However, the unit research could not definitively explain why women, and black and minority ethnic lawyers, were paid significantly less than their white, male counterparts.

AWS chairwoman Fiona Fitzgerald is calling for all members to take part in the anonymous online survey – which will be launched this autumn – ‘to enable us to come up with some solutions’ to the pay divide. She said: ‘The key areas we want to focus on are performance issues – we want to ensure that people receive equal pay for equal work. We are particularly interested in performance targets and how they fit with salary packages.’

Fitzgerald said the AWS would also be writing to partners and human resources professionals at ‘most of the top 100 firms’ to ask them to take part and also to encourage their female employees to participate in the survey.

The AWS hopes to present the findings at a round-table discussion between government and professional representatives at the end of November.