We increasingly are witnessing the feminisation of the solicitors' profession.

Some 60% of trainees are women, as are nearly 56% of qualifying practitioners.

This is no bad thing and it is indeed somewhat overdue, as our third instalment on the history of the profession over the past 100 years illustrates.

While women are rapidly making up for lost ground in terms of numbers, men should not panic that they are about to become professionally extinct - they still account for more than 61% of practising solicitors.

Where women are not advancing as rapidly as they should is in the area of pay.

Research from the Law Society released this week shows they are remunerated significantly worse than their equivalent male colleagues right from the moment they sign their training contracts.

It might be argued that women gravitate towards the less lucrative and therefore less well-remunerated fields of practice.

That may be true, but there will be unfair reasons for it.

Women are pushed towards what are still perceived as 'female' areas of practice and away from the perceived macho culture of the larger commercial firms; women are also more likely to take career breaks that can retard their pay progression.

The wider profession and firms specifically need to address these issues.

In a profession that prides itself on justice and fairness, inequality in terms of pay and opportunity is plainly neither just nor fair.