WHILE NEW PARTNERSHIP APPOINTMENTS ARE ON THE INCREASE, FEMALE PARTNERS CONTINUE TO CONSTITUTE A MINORITY.

ROBERT VERKAIK INVESTIGATES.It looks like being another record year for the appointment of new partners.

In this season's partnership round leading City firms Clifford Chance and Linklaters & Paines have taken on 2 2 and 23 partners respectively.

Last year they promoted 17 lawyers each and were talking then about breaking records.

The Clifford Chance partnership is now growing at a rate of around 10 per cent year on year, while Linklaters has 191 partners, representing an expansion of 14 per cent for this year alone.

Another of the top five, Freshfields, has taken on 16 new partners compared with 13 in 1996.It is a similar story amongst the mid-sized law firms.

Rowe & Maw and Lawrence Graham have promoted eight lawyers to their partnerships.

This year's high intake provides another indicator that business is very much on the up.However, the statistics tell another story.

Of all the 87 promotions mentioned above only 11 were women.

What is more disturbing is that this year's crop of new partner candidates entered the profession in the late 1980s when women accounted for at least 50 per cent of the entry.

Clifford Chance managing partner Geoffrey Howe, whose own firm managed to promote just four women partners this year, is baffled by the disproportionate number of new female promotions.

He said: 'The reasons are very difficult to determine.

But there's absolutely no inherent bias.

I think most firms would like to create more women partners.'Anthony Tomkins, a barrister and leading recruitment consultant with the Charles Fellowes partnership, regards the inequality of partner promotion as something which needs addressing: 'Firms still pay lip service to this problem.

But I think some are fearful that women will have children, which will have a dramatic effect on their performance in the firm.' He adds: 'People should not be frightened to talk about it.

By now we would expect the balance to have changed.

It hasn't and we've got some how to address the problem.' But judging from some of the firms' responses to the question of under-promotion of women, they are not going to start building positive discrimination into the partnership appointment process.

Mr Howe stresses: 'There is never a case for discrimination of any form.

The only way to recruit is to get the best person for the job.'David Marsh is senior partner of Bristol based law firm Burges Salmon (BS).

Last year the firm took on seven more partners, three of whom were women.

BS has set up a maternity system which goes far beyond anything the state can offer.

Says Mr Marsh: 'It's more generous than the statutory requirement and allows mothers more time off and the chance to come back on a part-time basis.

We like to think this is a more enlightened approach.'Last year Lawrence Graham actually took on more women partners (3), than men (2).

It now has 10 female partners out of a total of 67.Managing partner Bill Richards maintains that law firm partnership structure is changing.

'I suspect there is a much greater proportion of lady partners who are under 40 than in partnership as a whole.' This is certainly borne out by Lawrence Graham's litigation department where seven of the eight partners who are under 40 are women.Current activity in the legal markets, particularly for those firms with strong international practices, is moving at such a fast rate that most managing partners cannot afford to make partnership equality a priority issue.

Many firms would argue that they simply have to respond to the demands of the market as quickly as possible by promoting the best performers.

Says Mr Howe: 'Clifford Chance has not said we must increase our partnership.

We react to the market place.

We are a broad based international practice where an increasing part of our business is sourced ou tside the UK.'Mr Richards says it is also important to get the right blend of 'finders, minders and grinders'.

If that means not having enough high quality partners, of either sex, to meet the demand then the firm has to accept it will miss out on business.Dominique Graham is a founding partner of recruitment consultants Graham Gill & Young.

She says the volatile nature of the recruitment market has changed the whole partnership ethos.

She points out: 'Since the recession partners are much more likely to move.

Before partners did not move and were not pushed.' Now, she says, anyone who 'is not billing' cannot save the firm from going under.

'Firms vary as to how long they will carry people,' she adds.Anthony Tomkins is used to the partnershipround being the busiest time of his year.

'You've got a lot of frustrated people not getting partnership this year.

If firms are not retaining their staff by offering them partnership then the staff are walking.

Before we might have urged caution -- now we're saying "where do you want to go?"'According to Mr Tomkins, business-minded firms can also look forward to a bright future.

'If I had a pound for each time a firm has said this is the best year we've had I would be very rich.'The annual partnership round also sets off activity in the lateral hire market.

Firms are getting used to being more resourceful in attracting lawyers from competitors.

Explains Mr Richards: 'Many lawyers are looking for a change of scene and so you have to take advantage of the opportunities in the recruitment market place.'As the economy continues to dictate the pace of growth in the legal market place it is difficult to see how rapidly expanding firms can maintain the quality of the partners they recruit.

However this is a presumption which is firmly rebutted by Geoffrey Howe.

'Relaxing the criteria is something a sensible firm simply will not do.

The short-term benefits make for long term lunacy.' And he says that in his experience the standards of partnership criteria are 'more rigorous' today.Adds Mr Marsh, of Burges Salmon: 'We regard partnership as a life-long commitment..'This year's trend in record numbers of promotions and new recruits bears a strong similarity to the figures of the boom 1980s.

And we all know what happened next.

Predicts Mr Tomkins: 'I think there's probably another three more good years to come.'FIRMS IN THE 1990S ARE STRUGGLING TO REWARD AND RETAIN SENIOR SOLICITORS WHO ARE DENIED OR REFUSED PARTNERSHIP, REPORTS TIM WEEKES.Senior assistants in law firms are enjoying a comeback.

Traditionally they were the victims of a ruthless culture that insisted solicitors be either promoted to the partnership or shunted out -- the up or out policy.

The belief that a solicitor could be a good lawyer without having the desire or business aptitude to be a partner seemed alien.

Now, with fewer partnerships on offer than in the 1980s, firms realise they need larger numbers of experienced non-partners.

And so senior assistants are seeing their employers forced to take on a more caring image in an attempt to retain the staff they used to jettison.The most obvious change is in the language firms are speaking.

The talk now is not of up or out, but of valuing, challenging, rewarding and retaining experienced solicitors.

Jonathan Lewis, chief executive of DJ Freeman, says that in the 1980s the firm could offer partnership to every competent lawyer.

But he says: 'Now a partner has to contribute on a number of fronts, and not just be a good lawyer.

But we still want to keep the good lawyers in the firm.

This means we have to treat people with the respect that their skills deserve.' Unfortunately, the profession has yet to come up with a sure-fire way to do this.

In fact, the more progressive personnel directors find themselves in a cleft stick.Any strategy aimed at increasing the prestige and responsibilities of senior assistants risks trespassing on the privileges and position of the partners.

One firm that has made strenuous efforts to square this circle is Denton Hall.

Last year the firm announced a new designation, 'senior solicitor', for senior assistants who had not yet become partners or who were not going to.

Paul Green, the firm's head of personnel who devised the new role, said it was a response to the firm's desire to hold on to experienced solicitors.

'Two years ago nobody was thinking about retention, but now it is on everybody's mind,' he says.

His analysis was that pay was not enough to keep good assistants at the firm -- they needed a more challenging role, and the prestige that went with it.

So at the heart of the new role is the requirement to take on extra non-legal responsibilities in relation to work such as internal management, marketing or client relations.

Senior solicitors also have their own profit-related bonus scheme.

But according to Mr Green, the main aim was to make senior assistants a more respected group within the firm.

It is still too early to form judgements on the success of Denton Hall's initiative, although Mr Green says it has been 'quite successful in binding people together and in helping their career development'.

But the clear intention is to ditch the worst of the legal profession's personnel practices.

'This is the complete antithesis of up or out.

If people are performing competently, there is no reason to up or out them just for the sake of a structure,' he says.The question remaining unanswered though, is whether this degree of responsibility is enough to show assistants that they have a worthwhile career ahead of them.

Anne Radford, a human resources consultant who specialises in advising professional practices, says that firms might have to break down the structures that give sometimes overwhelming responsibilities to partners while stifling the personal development of assistants.

She says research she carried out for an oil company showed that young people feel little loyalty to any company or organisation.

The most important criterion for new entrants to the job market is whether an employer will give them good training.

And they will only stay as long as they feel they are developing their positions within the organisation.

Because of this, Ms Radford suggests personnel policies should not relate to whether a solicitor is a partner or not.

'A law firm truly wanting to recruit and hold on to talented staff could set itself up as an organisation that trained and developed people irrespective of whether they were partners or not,' she says.

She agrees with Paul Green that respect is crucial, but she goes further than Denton Hall in suggesting that firms should, for instance, consider putting a senior assistant on their management committee.

This has been done by firms of chartered surveyors, but it is evidence of the strength of old attitudes to partnership that this is still seen as a step too far for the legal profession.A new generation of solicitors is now ensuring that senior non-partners become a more prominent part of the profession than ever before.

Paul Verlander, chairman of the young solicitors' group, says that 'a large contingent' of young solicitors hav e no desire to become partners because of the losses others suffered in the last recession.

Many also reject the huge burden of internal administration that partnership imposes.

As senior assistants they do, however, want a challenging and interesting career in the law.It is clear that the profession has not found a sure-fire way to reward senior assistants.

DJ Freeman's Jonathan Lewis speaks forcefully of the need to give senior assistants a position that is 'valued', and says that some of his assistants have 'extremely high salaries'.

Even so, he says the firm continues to see staff leaving after being turned down for partnership.

In the end, the bigger firms are caught in the straitjacket of the partnership structure.

It is interesting that a range of commentators including Mr Verlander and Mr Green raised the question of whether a completely satisfactory solution would not be found until firms had incorporated.

In the meantime, senior assistants seem to be in a seller's market.

Firms look like having to give more -- in status and responsibility if not pay -- to hold on to their experienced staff.GOOD INTERNAL COMMUNICATION CAN HELP A FIRM'S NEW PARTNERS ADJUST, SO BREAK DOWN THE ASSISTANT-PARTNER BARRIERS, URGES KIM TASSO.Becoming a partner can be a very testing time.

As when moving from the rank of private to officer there is an adjustment to be made.

In firms where there is a large communication gap to bridge the adjustment problems can be acute.

New partners can feel vulnerable and shocked as they try to get to grips with all the financial information previously denied to them and the urgent expectation that they will go out there and start generating business.

Exposure to the way the partnership operates behind closed doors and the disruptive politics, apparent disregard for staff and clashing personalities are reported as a major concern by new partners in some firms.

Many adjust by adopting the role model before them and thus perpetuate the gap between partners and non--partners.In other firms internal communication and empowerment is taken seriously so new partners have little to adjust to.

Yet good internal communications and the involvement of all staff does much more than smooth the path for new partners.

It is often vital to the short and long term success of the firm.Although many older partners may dismiss what they regard as time-wasting 'touchy feely stuff' the evidence shows that happy and involved staff are more productive.

Unfortunately, some partnerships are willing to devote considerable time and resources to their business development yet fail to recognise the considerable potential in the extended sales force of their staff.It costs very little to talk to staff about what is going on in the practice, to trust them with some information about the firm's future plans and strategy and to tell them that their ideas and help would be welcomed.Every member of staff is an ambassador of the firm and the special care taken by a secretary or receptionist will create a much bigger impression on potential clients than a hundred glossy brochures.

It is sad but not uncommon to hear clients say that although the partners provide an excellent service they are often let down by the junior assistants and support staff.

This often arises because no one tells these people how important their contribution is to the overall image of the firm and the satisfaction of the clients.Partners are swift to pass on such client complaints and grumbles but often fail to mention when clients have been impressed by the service provided by junior solicitors and support staff.

Passing on such comments has a powerful motivating effect.Partners should start by talking to staff at meetings to which they are invited to listen and to ask questions, and on an informal basis in the corridor or at the end of client meetings.

Sessions could be arranged where the role of staff in presenting an excellent service can be discussed and where ideas on what can be done to improve things are sought.One item that frequently comes up in such sessions is the conflicting messages given by the partners.

For example, non-partners are told to record all their time on time sheets and then admonished for taking too long over certain tasks.

Sometimes, staff are given a procedure and their supervising partner then encourages them to disregard it.

Frank and safe discussions are needed to promote staff debate on sensitive subjects without fear of reprisals.In larger practices, an informal staff newsletter could be introduced, whereas in smaller firms press clippings or letters from clients/referrers can be placed on a wall where they can be seen by everyone.

Lunches where members of staff are invited to come and talk to the partners are also effective.

Some firms arrange informal social gatherings to help staff talk to each other more as well as to the partners.Whatever method is used to promote communication, non-partners must be listened to.

Be patient when the first session appears to catalogue an impossible list of requests.

Show them that the partnership will act on one or two of the major issues initially.Usually requests will be for things that do not cost hard cash but partners' time.

Assistants should be taken to business development meetings so that they can start to learn how to act appropriately on such occasions.

Invite some non-partners to meetings that are usually dominated by partners.

Encourage assistants to become more interested in helping with the research for marketing or the organisation of client events.

Bridging the communication gap will make it much easier for new partners.