Our flexible friend

The call for more flexible working has been heard for some years, yet little seems to have happened.

This week, Cherie Booth QC attacked the 'macho' long-hours culture of many law firms and warned that a failure to adapt will force women out of the legal profession.

At the same time, a survey indicated that the larger practices are better on the theory of flexible working than the reality.

Now that employees have a legal right to ask for flexible working, law firms need to consider this tricky management issue more carefully.

They must show good reason to turn down any request, and many will no doubt be able to do so.

But the real problem may be that flexible working goes against the grain for many of those considering such requests.

They had to slog it out, so everyone else should too.

The law is not a part-time vocation.

Why should someone else have the fabled work-life balance while those in the office full time do not? The senior partner will be wanting time off for pottery classes next.

Yet Bristol's Burges Salmon has very high numbers of flexible workers and appears to be thriving.

City firm DLA and Birmingham-based Wragge & Co have recently featured in a list of the 100 best places to work in Europe through more modern management that seems to make employees feel happy and valued.

As in so many things, the legal profession cannot swim against the tide of modernisation, whatever it thinks of such a movement.

Forget, if you want, the issue of principle: in a competitive and economically shaky world, can you afford to be anything other than flexible?