Being a lawyer is an ideal career for women - so long as they are not too ambitious, according to some senior women solicitors.Sue Stapely, head of the Law Society's press and parliamentary unit and a former family so licitor, said: 'Law is a good career for women.

But I am not sure it is such a good career for women who aspire to the highest level.' Such women are likely to find their ambitions thwarted, she warns.Denise Kingsmill, partner at City firm Denton Hall, agrees that women's progress is routinely - if subtly - blocked.

'What is valued more than anything else with firms is the ability to bring in clients.

Women, who are kept as permanent assistants, or become partners but are really glorified assistants, do not get the opportunity to bring in work.' This is emphatically not, she says, because they lack the skills.

'Any business person will tell you that women are very good salespeople,' she added.Ms Kingsmill puts her own success down to her having deliberately circumvented the usual rules.

Having trained and worked within largish, established firms for some years, she opted out to develop her own niche practice before coming back into the mainstream.

'I was a little bit older than most solicitors at my level.

I had already held a senior position in a career before becoming a lawyer.

And I could see how things were working within the law.

The only way I could get to the level I wanted to be at was by doing what I did.

It was a very conscious decision.' Once she had established a strong following, Ms Kingsmill says she suddenly became a marketable proposition to City firms.Alison Parkinson, vice-chairwoman elect of the Association of Women Solicitors, says calls to its sex discrimination helpline demonstrate the robustness of the so-called glass ceiling.

If anything, rather than women's prospects improving, the glass is becoming armour-plated.

'Since about 1990, things has been going downhill for women,' she said.

Ms Parkinson says this is not just to do with the recession but, ironically, because the number of women in the profession has increased to the point where men are feeling threatened.

'They are using the recession as an opportunity to get rid of the competition.'There is a school of thought that argues that this is par for the course.

While there are still very few women breaking into male-dominated professions, those who do make it can find themselves at an advantage over their male colleagues.

Apart from anything else, their novelty value gives them a high profile.

If the proportion of women continues to increase, men start to feel threatened and a backlash begins.Ms Parkinson believes that with women constituting 30% of all practising solicitors, we are currently at the second stage of the process of women breaking into the male-dominated professions.

This is not a view, however, shared by all.

Lesley McDonagh, newly elected as managing partner at City giant Lovell White Durrant, apparently rejects any notion of widespread hostility towards women solicitors.As a member of the Law Society Council, she recently voted against a move by fellow Council member Eileen Pembridge to have a seat specially designated for an AWS representative.

'I believe that women solicitors are already represented by both male and female members of the Council.

When issues primarily affecting women are brought to Council, they receive a full and sympathetic hearing,' said Ms McDonagh.Presumably because of the supposed sensitivity of the issue, the Council debate took place during the closed session of the meeting.

However, Ms Pembridge - who was not available for comment - denied that, with more women coming into the profession, the Council will automatically become more representative in the fullness of time.

She apparently calculated th at, without direct action, it will take until the year 2075 before the Council, where currently just eight of 70 seats are held by women, will reflect the fact that 30% of its members (or over 50% of those under 30) are female.However, Ms Pembridge's motion was supported by just 16 votes - three of which were from women Council members.As many firms see it, the problem with women solicitors is their inconvenient and faintly embarrassing habit of having children.

Ms Parkinson confirms that this can turn them into non-people.

'We hear of people going on maternity leave and coming back to find they have no desk and no files.'Another woman solicitor confirms that women do feel intensely vulnerable when it comes to having children.

'I am aware of women who would like to have babies but are putting it off because they are waiting for a decision about partnership.

There is no question it would scupper their prospects.' Another, who came back to work four days a week after the birth of her baby - and worked like a Trojan - was refused even an incremental pay rise on the basis that, being part-time, she no longer showed the necessary commitment.Ms Parkinson says that the swathes of women entering the profession in the 1980s, many of whom have been progressing unhindered, are now starting to suffer discrimination.

As they start to reach 30 - the age when their biological clock is popularly believed to start ticking - firms are beginning to look at them askance.It is to try to get a true picture of the position of women within the profession that a conference, 'The woman lawyer: benefit or burden?' is being held on 8 April in London.

Sponsored by the Bar and the Law Society, it is already a sell out.

A panoply of heavyweight speakers - including past and present Chairmen of the Bar, present and future Law Society Presidents, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Chief Justice, chairman of the Bar's sex discrimination committee - suggests there is commitment at the highest level to tackling the issues raised.Of course, any event which brings together the profession's female finest could be a double-edged sword.

Women speakers on the bill are leading QCs, judges, the director of public prosecutions, company secretaries of major plcs.

All of which inevitably raises the question, if this lot can make it, is there really a problem? Ms Parkinson says: 'Women lawyers should not have to be exceptional.

They should be able to be mediocre, like many of the men solicitors we all come across every day.'