Jo Russell speaks to female corporate lawyers about how opportunities in the profession have improved for working women, and the obstacles still being faced.
(1) Anna Zeitlin (AZ), Dubai-based corporate partner at Addleshaw Goddard, specialising in fintech and financial regulatory
(2) Julie Book (JB), partner in Burges Salmon’s corporate and M&A team in Bristol, who also leads the law firm’s female forum network – BEntrepreneurial
(3) Selina Sagayam (SS), former partner and global head of ESG at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and now non-executive director for Changeworks, The Renewables Infrastructure Group and Sequoia Economic Infrastructure Income Fund
(4) Nina Searle (NS), Bristol-based corporate and M&A partner at TLT and co-founder and co-sponsor of TLT’s Women’s Equality Network
(5) Elia Montorio (EM), Manchester-based corporate and M&A partner at Shoosmiths
(6) Tandeep Minhas (TM), partner and head of corporate finance at Taylor Wessing
(7) Ella Sharpley (ES), corporate and M&A partner at Travers Smith
How is female representation at the deal table today?
JB There are certainly more female lawyers than lead advisers or investors – it’s the nature of our industry. Private equity has historically been male-dominated. In the legal profession at the junior end it has always been more like 50:50, so they are more proportionately moving up the ranks.
SS For years I never had a female client. I now sit on two FTSE250 investment funds and there are no senior women among our external investment managers’ and advisers’ teams. For the legal profession, force of numbers is having an impact. Some sectors have a greater challenge attracting female talent and probably less scrutiny. Some industry guidelines impact private equity, but law firms are under more scrutiny when it comes to DEI issues.
EM Twenty-five years ago it was commonplace to be the only female in the room. BVCA studies show that since 2018 the number of female investment professionals in private equity has risen from 14% to 27%. In FTSE250 companies there is a lot of parity between women and men. But looking at the executive directors, it is still quite low. Our corporate team [at Shoosmiths] is 55% female, and 30% of our corporate partners are women, compared with market average of 25%.
TM I have rarely, if ever, seen a woman leading the adviser team. We come across women in the adviser side team, but usually not in a senior role. Women corporate law partners across the City are still a minority, but numbers are noticeably on the increase. When I was promoted in 2006, I was the first woman in that firm to be promoted to partner in corporate for 15 years. At Taylor Wessing about a third of partners and half of associates are female. Role models are massively important when you’re trying to effect change.
What initiatives have helped female promotion?
AZ There are various mentor and reverse mentor programmes that come from a genuine place and are enriching. I am based in the Middle East and people stay a long time with our firm, which is not common. It’s because they feel valued and see a future at the firm. There is a willingness to learn and understand where other people are coming from in a truly empathetic way. You can have all the right programmes in place but still have poor behaviour if the culture isn’t right. Practice has to align with what is preached.
JB We don’t specifically differentiate for women, as we have policies and support networks in place to develop everyone’s careers. Alongside an employee-driven gender balance network, we run career focus sessions, some of which focus on more senior males and females who are balancing childcare or other carer responsibilities.
I have rarely, if ever, seen a woman leading the adviser team. We come across women in the adviser side team, but usually not in a senior role.
EM It’s important to improve return-to-work maternity leave policies, but it’s just as important to help women have the same opportunities. It’s not women not ‘leaning in’ sufficiently that prevents gender parity. We run a stop-and-check on pay review or promotion processes, for example, to check there is no unconscious bias. If there is a disparity we’ll look at why that is. We have a capacity and capability tool across the country that looks at who is free (green, yellow, red). Work is then distributed according to levels of business and capacity, rather than to ‘favourites’, thereby giving everybody an opportunity.
NS Early in my career there were no such initiatives. In most teams I was the only female and I just used to try to fit in. Now in our corporate team we are approaching 50:50 at team and partner level. I helped set up our Women’s Equality Network, a place for women to share their experiences – with each other, but also with male allies. I don’t believe anyone intended to exclude women, but the workplace was designed a long time ago by men for men. We try to be alive to any blind spots and ask our people how they can be better supported in their roles. Some things are actually relatively easy to fix, like ensuring that employee wellbeing initiatives cover things like gynaecological issues and menopause. It isn’t women that need fixing – they aren’t broken, they’re just working in a system that wasn’t designed by or for them.
TM We have a number of talent development programmes at Taylor Wessing for female lawyers that provide information, tools and techniques to support our women to help them achieve their full potential. Our Elevate programme is aimed at 3-5 PQE female associates and involves in-person events and group coaching sessions, helping the firm’s high-potential female talent overcome any gender-specific challenges. I have mentored women associates through the Elevate programme. I have also taken part in the International Women’s Leadership Programme, which is aimed at senior women leaders from all backgrounds and involves a blend of webinars and coaching. It aims to make sure that their hard work and efforts are appropriately recognised both within the firm and with clients.
ES There isn’t a moment I haven’t felt supported. Since 2017, when I joined the profession, I’ve found that firms have been focused on ensuring women are given the right chances. However, I would say that earlier in my career these initiatives were more informal. Making mentoring and networking more formalised is a positive move.
Mentoring is hugely important. The support I had from my formal female mentor, a tax partner, was invaluable and made a big difference to my progression. Given my experience, I have put myself forward for our firm-wide mentoring scheme, to offer support to women. Informal lunches or similar events which bring female associates together from across the firm work well – people can share experiences, and build their networks across the firm.
What challenges persist?
SS Historically, female lawyers were rolled out at pitches but would not work on the deal, or would be in the background doing due diligence or project management while male counterparts were negotiating. Strides have started to be made – initiated through client pressure and some explicit requirements and transparency – with female lawyers being positioned for more rain-making roles and not lumbered with office housework or execution roles, but there have been other setbacks and developments. The work allocation issue, which has a direct impact on promotion, still persists. Alongside this,
female lawyers do a disproportionate amount of the ‘invisible and unrewarded labour’ in law firms – supporting the important but often less-valued programmes that support the talent and culture of firms, including mentoring, DEI and less visible business and practice development initiatives.
We need to think about all this, particularly with the advance of AI, which will subsume many aspects of the execution or ‘housework’ type of workflows. We also have to recognise that progression for female lawyers went backwards or at the very least stalled during Covid. We lost many mid and up-coming female talent – especially those with caregiving responsibilities who took a back seat or didn’t push themselves forward for promotion. When we came back to work, male colleagues had moved further along. Also hybrid and remote working was taken up more by females. Another very current and real challenge is the industry and broader backlash to DEI programmes ignited by political shifts in the US. There has been much more caution in recent times, particularly from international firms with a transatlantic presence and many of the US global elite.
JB Representation at partner level remains a challenge. In 2020, 20% of our partners were women. In 2025 that increased to 32%, but it remains the challenge that with fewer females in senior roles, there are fewer to look up to as role models and evidence that it can work. Covid had a big effect, making it easier for people to balance work and other responsibilities, although there’s a 24/7 availability expectation on everybody now. There is no magic bullet – there are new challenges to balance all the time.
ES One challenge is how the industry adjusts to make sure that women feel they can progress to senior roles and still have the family life they were hoping for. I don’t think there is one simple answer. It’s about having open dialogue with the woman concerned and trying to find a way that works for them personally, rather than standardising. It’s also not necessarily a gender-specific issue. There are, of course, men in my team who want to play a role in their child’s life. Those needs should be at the forefront of people’s minds.
TM We’ve made significant progress, but we know that there are still challenges to achieving full gender parity at partnership and leadership levels.
In terms of opportunities, we’re looking at the use of AI through the lens of gender to be future-ready. That’s an exciting opportunity for the firm to leverage technology in supporting gender equality and career development.
Are clients looking for diversity in advisers?
AZ In the past six months a handful of international clients have asked for details of DE&I within my team, which is a first. In the UK it’s common to ask, but not so in the Middle East.
Large banks and tech companies are leading the way and impacting the approach to culture and diversity in the region.
SS Clients applying pressure can and have made a difference to the pace and development of meaningful DEI initiatives. If there were naysayers who failed to see the value of what is simply (but importantly) talent management, or reticence internally, things rapidly started changing once clients started to apply greater scrutiny on their suppliers and service providers, such as law firms. The ‘asks’ from clients have also matured and enhanced over time, bolstered by the increased focus on ESG factors by businesses. Fifteen years ago it would not be unusual for most RFPs to include a standard question about DEI initiatives at the firm and basic data on gender split and roles. Clients get it – retaining, nurturing and developing top talent at their professional services provider improves value and quality.
EM Big corporates want to know who they’re dealing with and what the true makeup is. It is not a tick-box exercise. They’re smart enough to look beyond to the culture of the firm. They have to trust their advisers implicitly.
How was your experience of having children and returning to work?
Laura Brunnen (LB) They had to write the maternity leave policy for me as no other female partner in London had gone on maternity leave. I went straight back into leading a $1bn private equity deal. I wanted to prove I could still do the job. If I had been offered a ramp-up programme I would probably have felt patronised. Far too many of us are blindly loyal. If I could go back in time, I would ask myself: ‘Why are you putting work before yourself, your family, your health?’
Women on the march
March Women is a female M&A networking group. It was founded in 2022 by Laura Brunnen, who has 25 years’ experience as a corporate M&A lawyer, and was formerly partner at Reed Smith, King & Wood Mallesons, and Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. The group hosts a variety of events, all geared towards cross-pollination of ideas and contacts.
This is not a talking shop about how hard it is to be a woman,” says Brunnen. “This is about how we help ourselves, build business, help our organisations. I do try to get across that women need to be in control of their own clients and book of business to have a handle on their career, otherwise they will always be beholden."
NS When I had my first child in 2010, I felt I had to pick up and carry on as if it hadn’t happened. There were no role models ahead of me. Male colleagues would talk about their children, but I wanted people to see me as a lawyer, and not a mother. Conversely, in my experience at TLT, if I am going to pick the kids up, I can tell people. It’s important that the team feel they can do the same. I don’t think it’s a gender issue anymore. It helps everyone, but workplaces are more empowering for women than they used to be.
AZ A client working as an in-house legal counsel told me she would have liked partnership status, but it would be difficult to balance with a thriving personal and family life. I sympathised, as I have definitely put my private life second to my career progression. It takes an understanding person to be with someone who is dedicated to their job.
When I had my first child in 2010, I felt I had to pick up and carry on as if it hadn’t happened. There were no role models ahead of me.
How do firms lead societal change?
LB I was once on a panel for junior lawyers and was asked how I found it juggling children. I said: ‘There are three men on the panel – why are they not being asked the same question?’ This is a broader societal question. It’s not how do we make it easier for working mothers, but how do we, as a society, make these jobs work better for everyone? The more it becomes the norm for men to take extended paternity leave, the less it will be seen as taking a backward career step.
EM Flexibility within projects is key – it’s a mindset – and as long as everyone buys into it, including clients, it works. It’s still a 24/7 culture, but we can change how we do things.
NS Unfortunately the prevailing perception is that women are the primary carers and secondary breadwinners. Flexibility allows people to work in a hybrid way, but tends to be taken up disproportionately by women, who then become less visible, making it harder for those chance introductions and opportunities. Initiatives have grown up to mitigate that, which is important. But ultimately I don’t want to be working in a gender-split world.
