Courage, the missing element in achieving gender parity within the Law?

I'll give you my answer to that question near the end of this article. 

Gender disparity persists at a senior level across almost all the UK's leading law firms.

It doesn't really matter if you are using the top 30, 100 or 200 firms as your yardstick, the statistics speak for themselves... they are poor. 

Even those firms who are making solid progress, seem to trip themselves up when it comes to their approach to lateral hiring. (we'll cover that in much greater depth in a future post.)

So in this, the first in our series of articles, we begin to explore WHY gender disparity persists across the UK's top law firms, despite all of the good work we keep reading about in the Lawyer.

"I first became aware of this issue after my daughter mentioned she may want to enter the law..."

As an interested parent, I thought I'd best find out a bit more about what she might encounter.

So I spoke to a client who also happens to be a very talented and senior female lawyer. Despite everything, she has managed to successfully juggle her career and family life over the years.

Our conversation went a little like this...

1. She shared her experiences and clearly laid out the challenges involved in becoming a great lawyer 
2. I realised a significant number of these were related to her experiences as a female... true to form, I simply couldn't accept the situation could be as bad as she said, (I know what this says about me!)
3. As a result, I researched it to check for myself. 

So what did I learn?

First, I decided to focus solely on the personal experiences of female legal professionals. Remember, whilst I also work with some remarkable men, I wanted to better understand what my daughter might experience.

I met some wonderful people including QC's, partners, in-house counsels, associates, board members, professors and even some still studying for their law degrees.

Without fail, everyone was generous with their time and were, surprisingly, eager to talk about and share their experiences...

I have never encountered anything else quite like it in my life.

For me, this became a worrying early indicator of the problems related to gender across the profession; the lasting impact it has on people and the plethora of challenges involved in changing the status quo.

The thought of my daughter having to experience even 1/10th of what I learned, led directly to the formation of aQtalent. 

Don't get me wrong, I fully recognise men also face many challenges progressing through a legal career; it's just that these are almost never related to their gender - you simply cannot say the same for women. 

So, back to courage, how it's foundations can frequently be misunderstood and, what ultimate role it could play in helping to achieve gender parity everywhere, including across the upper echelons of the legal sector.

To illustrate, let me share a single incidence as it was recounted to me - it has been anonymised which, unfortunately also protects the guilty!

The daughter of a friend is currently in the final year of her law degree at one of the UK’s leading universities.

We got chatting and eventually I asked if, whilst studying, she’d ever experienced any challenges she'd identify as being related to her gender versus any other factor. This is what she told me...

When we were just starting out in our first year a male tutor told us to look around the lecture room. He observed that the days of the law being a male dominated profession were now over. He observed that almost 75% of us were female and we should remember that this was no longer a barrier to success...

This is a wonderful message and should be constantly reinforced to all of our daughters and if necessary, our partners, sisters and mothers.

She then went on to tell me about a situation that happened at the end of her second year,  2015 ...

We have a very large Law Society at our university although for some reason, many of it's members are male. Since I've been here it's been all boys who fill the elected positions of President, Vice President and Treasurer. I know a girl who wanted to run for the VP's role. To be effective, candidates sometimes group together and run on a single ticket, you know, vote for us, versus vote for me as an individual...

What I got told next reminded me that, whilst one's confidence is frequently based on one's competence... it also relies heavily on having developed a thick skin or, in other words, mental resilience.

This girl, a bright and talented fledgling lawyer, then told her male friend, who was running for the presidents role, she'd like to run together on a shared ticket. He said okay but a few days later sat down with her for a one to one chat... 

What I was then told so surprised me, I got my friend's daughter to repeat it three times!

He said that as her friend, he couldn't in all conscious have her on his ticket. He said that as a woman, she stood no chance of being elected and he didn't want her confidence to be knocked. He thought it would be best if she didn't put herself up for election and, as she didn't want to lose this man as a friend, she withdrew...

Just in case you have forgotten, this was not 1970, it was last year!  You decide for yourselves what to think about this young man, I know I have! 

However, I had real trouble reconciling this young woman's response... that is until I remembered something very important...

... over the years, I've come to recognise that resilience is something we learn through exposure to hardship, in other words, it is a thinking pattern which can be developed at any point in our lives.

Some people learn it early, some late and sadly, some never.

However, it's development requires you to be brave enough to put yourself in situations where failure is a strong likelihood, if not a certainty.

So here's my answer to the question... "Is courage the missing element in achieving gender parity, in the legal sector or anywhere else for that matter?"

Yes, it is!

Most of the lawyers I've worked with over the years are strong achievers, academic and otherwise. Most have a fear of failure and, correspondingly, have worked hard throughout their lives to avoid it.

The unintended consequence of this is they rarely get exposed to the tremendously powerful and positive learning that failure frequently brings.

Back to the situation I'm sharing with you. I then asked my friend's daughter if there had been any further ramifications for either party. She told me the following...

I spoke to the same male tutor who had told us being female was no barrier to success. He said it was appalling. However, as he hadn't witnessed it for himself... it was here-say and he didn't feel he could act on it. Second, it was actually a student matter, so perhaps I, or the girl it had allegedly happened to should speak to our student union representative....

It is always worth remembering that people remember actions, much more than hollow words and, until those of us in positions of authority stop tolerating behaviour that is unacceptable, the rule of "dog eat dog" will persist.

Turning a blind eye or, simply hiding behind the phrase "it's complicated" has exactly the same effect as giving someone permission to do wrong. 

So, what started out as a personal research project as a father, has turned into so much more. We may be ' a little late arriving at the party' but now we're here, we intend to make a difference. Our primary goal is: - 

To transform the legal profession in the UK by ensuring full equality, based on merit, for men and women, at every level.

We think that 10 years is long enough to bring about societal change so, that's how long we've given ourselves.

We know we won't achieve it acting in isolation but if everyone who reads this article chooses to risk failure, speak up and develop their courage, none of us will be on our own and we might just change the world for the better.

If you'd like to know more about us, or think we can help where you work, please get in touch and let us know, I promise we'll do our best.

Mark Smallwood (www.aqtalent.com)

Have you experienced anything like this?

What are your thoughts on courage and it's role in addressing the gender imbalance across the legal sector?