In the last of a series extracted from her new book, Elizabeth Cruickshank looks at the career of high-flying city-based lawyer Dame Judith Mayhew

New Zealand born lawyer Judith Mayhew - special adviser to the senior partner at Clifford Chance - was made a Dame last year for services to the City of London.

She is also chairman of the Royal Opera House.

In New Zealand, Ms Mayhew attended Otago Girls' High School.

It was 'a superb education based on the Scottish model of discipline and hard work'.

She was unwittingly following in the footsteps of the first woman solicitor in New Zealand, Ethel Benjamin, probably one of the first woman solicitors in the Commonwealth.

Ms Benjamin was not only educated at Otago Girls between 1883 and 1892 but also read law at Otago University in the 1890s, before becoming a lawyer after the passing of the Female Law Practitioners Act in 1896.

When in 1910 she left New Zealand for London she had to wait until 1919 to be permitted to practise officially as a lawyer in the UK.

Ms Mayhew was more fortunate when she moved to London in 1973, and was later to produce a television programme on Ms Benjamin's life.

Ms Mayhew came to the Law Faculty at Southampton University; she had been offered the position 'by post' without a formal interview.

Indeed Ms Mayhew is very short on interview experience, as the only formal job interview that she has ever had was for the position of Lecturer at Kings College London in 1976.

When she left 13 years later she was sub-dean of the law faculty and had developed with the Sorbonne the first genuinely joint degree in Law in Europe.

This required supreme organisational skills because of the French government's insistence that the course was not only to be evenly split with two years in English Law and two years in French law but that the English law should come first sequentially.

She was faced with 'unpicking the French thing', weaning young French students off the formalism of French education and teaching them how to think freely.

Her colleagues on the other side of the channel were some of the best legal minds in France, who, piqued that the English had put forward a young foreign woman without a doctorate, considered that she would not have the intellectual rigour to carry the project forward.

But their own students told them that 'it's the woman who's the tough one,' and she was accepted.

Ms Mayhew is obviously proud of this degree course.

Not only did it hone her managerial and administrative skills but it also provided her first taste of setting cutting edge policy at an international level.

Ms Mayhew narrates her career as though it were totally governed by serendipity, and has a disarming way of summing up the steps.

'I was visiting a friend at Titmuss Sainer Dechert and I walked out an hour later with a job as an employment lawyer and director of training.' Or, 'I happened to meet the senior partner of Clifford Chance five times in one week and eventually he asked me: "What can Clifford Chance do for you? And what can you do for Clifford Chance?" So we discussed it and I got the job of special adviser.' She does in fact know a lot of people, is willing to take on a challenge, and is always looking for further opportunities for personal development.

Titmuss Sainer Dechert brought her 'the steepest learning curve of my life' and some 'searing experiences'.

Because New Zealand lawyers are regarded as qualified after they have completed a law degree and are not required to serve articles, Ms Mayhew had not even worked in a legal office before she began to practise there.

She rapidly learned that there was a substantial difference between teaching black-letter law and putting it into practice to solve client problems that inevitably are always messier than artificial case studies.

She started out with an academic knowledge of sex discrimination but quickly found herself learning to draft, negotiating dismissal settlements and advising on the tax implications of share option schemes.

After six months she realised that many employment law matters could be solved by the application of common sense.

Not being a natural litigator, Ms Mayhew worked out a distinctive non-confrontational way of operating.

She refused to take on employer clients unless they were prepared to treat their employees fairly.

She would suggest to solicitors on the other side in dismissal cases that as they both knew what the settlement figure should be, give or take a small percentage, settling claims expeditiously should be their aim.

In her view time spent in litigation prevents an individual from looking forward to an alternative future, and is a distraction for the employing company which could be better spent on its core business.

Women, she says, have a pragmatic organised approach to bring to the law.

She recalls with affectionate pleasure the one occasion that Titmuss Sainer Dechert fielded by accident an all-woman team on a major transaction.

It was, she thought, 'a miracle of organisation and efficiency because we treated it all as a housekeeping exercise, and we didn't play silly macho games.'

Eventually Ms Mayhew was head-hunted by Wilde Sapte to fulfil the same role of practical lawyer and director of education in a wider sphere.

She feels strongly that legal education must be practice-relevant and negotiated a Wilde Sapte in-house legal training course that was accredited by the Law Society.

While there must be an element of choice in what is taught at law college and on university courses, trainees must acquire a sound grounding in the law of tort and contract because 'contract is the essence of what we are doing as lawyers'.

The emphasis on tort is partly tied up with her strong views on the ethical position of solicitors; 'It's what distinguishes us from the accountants.

We must always remember that we are Solicitors of the Supreme Court even if we never appear in court'.

Parallel with her legal career is a strong commitment to public service.

In 1986 she was elected to the Court of Common Council of the Corporation of London.

She was later appointed chairman of the education committee and has used her position to influence and assist all sorts of educational establishments from deprived primary schools in Hackney to the women's library at London Metropolitan University.

Setting up parents' rooms in a primary school in an area with a high Bangladeshi population resulted in 25% of the mothers moving into education themselves.

'This is one of the greatest achievements that I've had'.

Although the funding given by the City for the women's library was regarded by some of Ms Mayhew's male council colleagues as 'her little indulgence', it helped to turn a collection of packing cases on several disparate sites into an organised research library.

'The area which embodies the wealth and privilege of London should act positively to improve its poorer neighbours,' is an idea that motivates her as deputy chairman (she stepped down from the position as chairman early in 2003) of the policy and resources committee.

'My role is to build on the strengths and achievements of my predecessors to facilitate the regeneration and economic development of the poorer boroughs surrounding the City.'

So important is this wider view of society that she has in the past rejected career opportunities that she considered would have left her insufficient time for political work.

Part of her role at Clifford Chance has been to put together a coherent and mutually beneficial strategy for community affairs, by providing free advocacy for children's tribunals and arranging for corporate, property and banking lawyers to act as governors and trustees in the local community.

Involving secretaries and support staff across the firm in mentoring activities within local schools is 'wonderful for team-building across the firm'.

As well as helping the young people in the local community, they feel that the firm values their skills in a wider context.

The firm also supports young artists and actors to go into the local schools to provide first-class additional teaching, because where you can make school an unexpectedly interesting place that can be shared by a whole community, the horizons of children are raised way above their apparent conditioning.

At the other end of the spectrum she operates to facilitate Clifford Chance's dialogue with British universities and the EU.

It is not only for personal reasons that Ms Mayhew is proud of the honour that was bestowed on her in 2002, when she was made a dame.

In her eyes it represents the achievement of the City in supporting the poorer boroughs surrounding it, and the process of integration through education that she advocates.

Typically she sees this recognition as something to build on, not to recline on.

She is already looking to see how her 'damehood' can be used to advance the public profile of other women.

'There are not enough women in the commer-cial world who have been honoured for what they have achieved.'

The question remains of how a slender woman with a soft voice and a taste for delicate Victorian jewellery has managed to operate so successfully in a man's world.

First she is non-confrontational.

'I hate conflict and aggression.

I have always worked for consensus, for ensuring that the maximum number of people are happy with the outcome and to get the most out of scarce resources.'

Second, Ms Mayhew operates by inclusion.

Mention to her that you have a particular project and she will not only reel off the names of several people who you should meet, but she will clear the ground in advance with those who can really help you.

Third, she is realistic.

'I could not do what I do if I were married, let alone combine that with having children.' But what she does, combining what for many people would be two full-time occupations of public service and commercial enterprise would also be difficult for a man.

Fourth, she considers that she has been fortunate in having 'champions rather than mentors.

A mentor may be a useful person to talk things over with; a champion will not only open doors for you but will also push you through them'.

Not unsurprisingly, she lists her mother as her first great champion, but admits that after she left New Zealand those who filled that role in her life have all been men.

'The truth is that there have just not been many women in positions of power and influence, but there are a great many men.'

By deciding to devote so much of her energies to public service Ms Mayhew has chosen not to work 'flat out at the commercial side of things, even though I know I have taken a financial hit in doing so'.

She does not have a boring list of 'cases I have won' and 'masters I have persuaded' in her repertoire.

It is perhaps that gently intelligent approach that has helped her to succeed, and has enabled her to see the advantages in being a woman.

'In some ways you have a head start, because you are not taken hugely seriously at first.

So you are not blocked, and by the time that the chaps realise that maybe they should block you, it's too late'.

This is an edited version of an interview that appears in Women in the Law: Successful Career Management, edited by Elizabeth Cruickshank and scheduled to be published next month by Law Society Publishing.

It can be ordered from Marston Book Services, tel: 01235 465 656, at 29.95 plus 3.50 postage and packing