Reading that two lawyers have taken up the first judicial job-share post (see [2006] Gazette, 2 February, 5), I am reminded of two things.

Some years ago, I was on a panel at the Law Society's annual conference that was discussing job sharing. Two young women were also speaking; they shared an assistant solicitor's job working for a sole practitioner.


His approach was straightforwardly commercial in that the deal was that the two would, regardless of illness, child bearing and rearing and holidays, provide him with an assistant solicitor at all times that the office was open.


The solicitors worked, nominally, one in the morning, the other in the afternoon.


In discussion, hardly surprisingly we males could not understand how it worked; what happens if a client of the afternoon solicitor has a crisis in the morning or vice versa?


Answer, all the files were there, both women knew a bit about all the clients and both dealt as necessary, keeping the job-sharer informed. So easy for the multi-tasking women, so incomprehensible to the one-track males.


I have no doubt that the solicitor/barrister job-sharers, of whom you write, will manage with consummate skill.


Perhaps male members of the two branches of the profession will learn and one day follow.


Sir Richard Gaskell, former Law Society President (1988-1989), Chippenham, Wiltshire