Family: seeking childcare deal Law firms are missing out by not encouraging women solicitors who take a career break for family reasons to return to them when they go back into practice, Law Society research has shown.

Some 68% of women solicitors who recently returned to practice did so at a different firm – even though many of them had to take a pay cut – the survey of more than 400 ‘career break’ women revealed.


Almost half of the women returning to a new firm on a full-time basis had to take salaries lower than their pre-break levels – even though 40% said they had more responsibility than before their career break.


Women who returned to a different firm said they had more client contact, training opportunities, and administrative support than those who went back to the same firm. One-third said the childcare benefits offered were better than those available at their previous firm.


Many women solicitors are deterred from returning to work because of a negative perception of the profession’s attitude to returning women, the study also found. Some 44% of women who did not go back into practice cited this as a major deterrent.


As many as half of the women respondents who had left the profession altogether said they were put off going back into practice because they believed colleagues and employers would have misgivings about their home responsibilities, and there would be a general lack of support. However, the women surveyed who had returned to work were much less likely to highlight these factors as a concern.


Women also said they had chosen to leave the profession permanently because they perceived that peers within the firm would have better prospects, pay and status, and they were concerned about the type of work available on their return. Possible changes to the law that may have taken place during a career break were also a deterrent.


Joanne Siems, research officer at the Law Society’s strategic research unit, said: ‘Most women who did return to practice went back to positions that met their ideal criteria, in the area of law that they wanted and the size of firm they wanted. But concerns about the attitude of the profession to women returners was a significant deterrent to going back, even though most of those who did go back did not actually experience those problems.’


The research was a joint initiative between the Law Society, the Association of Women Solicitors and the Young Solicitors Group.