When a female lawyer who is officially recognised as the “Best Regulatory Lawyer” of the year tells you that the odds of being a partner in a law firm are still in favour of men, you know you need to sit up and take notice.
I had the pleasure of sitting next to Catherine Wolfenden at the Legal Business Awards, being a guest of her firm Osborne Clarke on the night they won top prize as Law Firm of the Year. The conversation and company around the table was already sparkling – we were dining with one of the profession’s most famous managing/senior partner combos, Ray Berg and Simon Beswick, also with comms supremo Simon Marshall, among others – but once their award win was announced the mood became positively effervescent.
I’d already heard of Catherine’s own win at the 2015 Women in Compliance Awards, so was itching to talk to her about her experience as a successful woman in a man’s world. I was surprised at what she had to tell me.
“When
I was first starting out in my career, I didn’t really think gender was an
issue. It’s something I’ve become more aware of as I’ve risen up the ranks and
become more senior.” Somehow I had thought it would be the other way
around, gender discrimination becoming less of an issue the more expert and
highly-regarded in the profession she became. I was all ears as she told
me her story.
“Throughout
school and university I’d always been encouraged to succeed, to be
ambitious. At Oxford (I studied Biological Sciences) there was a pretty
decent split between male and female students across all subjects as far as I
could see, in the sciences as well as the humanities and the arts. I am
one of three daughters and was brought up without any question of my gender
having an impact on life choices. Then as a trainee at Freshfields, again
there was a pretty 50/50 male/female split in our intake year and I can
honestly say I never experienced any discrimination in the way we were trained,
or in how the work was allocated. It was such a non-issue in fact, that I
barely thought about it at that stage.
I
first started to realise that gender is an issue on progression in the law
around the time of qualification, when deciding which area of law to specialise
in. I thought properly for the first time who my female role models
in the law were, someone to inspire me, who demonstrated what success looked
like for a woman working in a commercial law firm, both professionally and
personally. I seriously struggled to find a single woman who I was
inspired to emulate. No-one seemed to have sussed balancing life
outside of work with an interesting career in a top firm, whether or not
children were in the picture. And then I started to see the career casualties,
as one by one women dropped out of the drive to move up the ladder in the
partnership.
“There
were men who balanced a full-on, exciting work portfolio with outside interests
such as competitive tennis tournaments or triathlons. But actually not
that many. And of those I found, I realised that their personal blend of
work/life balance was often because their partner had stepped off the career
ladder and was providing all the home support, or because they were able to
employ a support network of people to help them. How many men are
prepared to do that for their partners careers and who can afford two nannies
and a housekeeper?!
“So
it wasn’t long before I decided to leave Freshfields and work for a smaller
firm, to see if things might be different there (– with the associated drop in
salary!). And it was. There was far less emphasis on time spent in
the office. Success was not about “presenteeism”, but about the service
you give your clients. And part of this is directly to do with the sort
of person you are as a whole; being a good lawyer is a long way from needing to
be chained to a desk, advising on law in the abstract; a good lawyer needs to
be rounded, understand the outside world that are clients’ businesses are
operating in and, most important of all, be real enough people that clients
actually want to engage with us and have working relationships with us.
“There
are some great female role models in senior positions in law firms, but not as
many as you would hope. One of my first role models was Alayne Swanson
who was the Head of Litigation at Maclay Murray & Spens (I don’t think she
knows this!). I was inspired by her success: she had great clients, for
whom she did great work, was a fabulous leader, she spent time with her (three)
kids and she had a great sense of humour. She was someone I could aspire
to be like as a lawyer and as a person.”
Does
Catherine think it is possible for lawyers to achieve a work/life
balance? “Well I’m striving to have that”, she tells me, “and to show
others it can be done. But of course what
"work/life balance" and "success" look like, is different
for everyone. I do believe that having female role models coming through
in the profession is hugely important to keep women motivated to work hard to
move up the career ladder. It is really demanding and I think it is key
to be able look up and see that all that hard work can pay off in a rewarding
long-term career with progression and a life outside the office. It is
important that senior women are conscious that we are looked up to as
role-models by more junior female lawyers and that we try hard to show the
right attitudes and behaviours."
***
One particularly interesting person I met was lawyer, Apprentice
star and entrepreneur Lauren Riley, who has launched an App designed
to "revolutionise how law firms communicate with their clients". The Link App promises to
keep clients in the loop without back and forth communication, improving
customer service at the same time as saving time and money for the
firm and increasing productivity". An essential tool in an
increasingly crowded and threatened marketplace, she says. When I
met Lauren, she was right in the midst of promoting
investment opportunities in the App via crowd funding.
She's particularly interested to hear from lawyers or firms keen to use
the App and take a stake in the business. If you're interested, take
a closer look via this
link.
***
We had fun and games at the Hospital Club last week
at our most recent Tonic Club meet-up. The evening took the
form of a Legal Games Night co-hosted with long-standing client, brand
valuation specialists Intangible Business. The idea was to tap in
to London's latest craze for retro games, to inspire discussions on
creativity and how to bring more imagination into our work. And held at
the Hospital Club's Loft Lounge for that added "Jumanji"
vibe.
Guests played Reality House's Law Trumps, a top trumps card
game based on The Lawyer's UK 200; Kysen's SuPR Powers board game
designed to illustrate the SuPR Powers of Persuasion, Perfect Timing,
Storytelling and Soundbite Spotting needed to achieve the best PR
results; and Aaron & Partners' brilliantly funny Straplines Quiz,
challenging players to identify high street brand slogans
disguised in legal jargon. Here's one to try at home:
"Cease and desist from all attempts to refrain from achieving
the aforementioned agreed outcome" *
(See bottom of post for answer)
But by far and away the favourite of the night was Intangible
Business's guessing game, inviting
guests to recognise recent law firm mergers in cocktail form. It was all in the taste, of course!
You can try this one at home too, if you have the ingredients for a
Singapore Sling (King & Wood Mallesons - a classic with an Asian flavour);
a Manhattan, (Squire Patton Boggs - a strong US flavour); and a Long
Island Iced Tea (Slater & Gordon's string of recent acquisitions - a strong
tipple with lots of ingredients that you can continue adding to) ...
as long as you promise to drink responsibly!
*Answer: Nike - Just
Do It
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