Family: the slow route to partnershipCASE STUDY: firms must change attitude to part-timers, says AWS London chiefPartnership or family thats the choice facing the youngest ever chairwoman of the Association of Women Solicitors London branch.Employment specialist Fiona Muxlow, a 34...Partnership or family thats the choice facing the youngest ever chairwoman of the Association of Women Solicitors London branch.Employment specialist Fiona Muxlow, a 34-year-old associate at City firm Taylor Joynson Garrett, has begun her spell with a call for firms to be more flexible in the work patterns they offer female staff.

Firms need to change their attitudes to part-time work, because for women who have families, flexi-time and more fluid working hours is vital, she said this week.

Ms Muxlow does not have a family herself, and readily admitted that one of the reasons is her career.

The fact is that if I want to be on the partnership track, then I simply cant take time out to have a family.And this is despite the fact that she works at a firm which, she said, has been incredibly supportive of her work with the AWS (she has also just been re-elected to the AWSs national executive committee).

Theyve given me time away when I needed it, and have been very flexible in terms of my working hours.

But prejudice against women, according to Ms Muxlow, spreads far and wide in the City.

Many firms, when it comes to recruitment, still see many female candidates at a disadvantage because they assume that in their thirties they will want to take time off to have children.

Ms Muxlow also wants to tackle the general, and as she sees it widespread, discrimination against female solicitors.

Although the first woman was admitted as a lawyer in the 1920s, women are still not seen in the same way as their male colleagues.

Recalling an occasion when a male client refused to do business with her simply because of her sex, she said: This isnt uncommon.

Many firms simply accept this and refer the client to a male solicitor rather than lose the work, she claimed.

But the AWS has no plans for bra-burning in Chancery Lane.

Networking with other women and lobbying are the ways to bring about change, says Ms Muxlow, while stressing that the situation is far from being all bad.

Women have come a hell of a long way in the law, but theres still a lot further to go.

Victoria MacCallum