05 November 2003
Female solicitors earn up to 15 per cent less than their male colleagues, an independent investigation into sexism in the legal profession shows.
Half of the young women interviewed said that they believed their promotion prospects were blocked by a glass ceiling.
The authors of the survey, which will be published in the magazine Legal Business next week, warned that there was cause for concern in the salary gap between male and female salaries at all levels.
Male lawyers with between six and nine years of post-qualification experience earn, on average, £11,000 more than their female counterparts.
One female solicitor from a City law firm said: "As an assistant, every day I face unjustified damning criticism, long hours, a crippled social existence and I spend 99 per cent of my day trying to cover up the mistakes of those above me. I have better prospects of living on the Moon than I do of being promoted, or noticed. I am a strict vegetarian, but I would achieve greater job satisfaction working in an abattoir."
Male solicitors with up to two years of post-qualification experience can expect to earn on average £47,813. A female solicitor can expect to earn £45,503. Women with between three and five years of post-qualification experience earn about 6 per cent less than men. Men and women with between six and nine years' post-qualification experience had the greatest disparity, with men earning about 15 per cent more than women (£84,023 to £73,036).
Adrian Barham, of the Young Solicitors Group (YSG), said: "We are particularly concerned about the disparity in pay between male and female assistants at the same level of qualification. The fact that this gap widens with the greater level of qualification is even more worrying. The YSG, with the help of the Law Society and the Association of Women Solicitors, is looking at the reasons why more women than men leave the profession and this may well be one factor"
Assistant solicitors said that striking a balance between work and home life was difficult. One female assistant at the City law firm Barlow Lyde & Gilbert said: "This is not a career for women who want to see their kids - it's a battle to get any flexible working.
"Success is only measured in terms of profit, so there will never be any true work/life balance in the City"
The survey found that assistants working in American law firms in Britain were among the least satisfied.
Kenneth MacRitchie, the managing partner of the London office of the American firm Shearman & Sterling, said: "When you are running up to financial close on a multibillion deal and it's your son's birthday, you cannot expect anyone to have any sympathy with the view that says you cannot make it if the deal needs you. The pressures of big-ticket deals are just too important to accommodate the personal lives of lawyers"
Tom Freeman, editor of Legal Business, added: "Given the increasing numbers of women flooding into the profession at junior levels, greater efforts have to be made to keep them on board. Women are getting a raw deal and it gets rawer as time goes on."
The survey also found that the longer assistants stayed in their jobs, the more cynical they became of the prospects of becoming a partner.
The Equal Opportunities Commission said that, on average across all occupations, women in Britain earned 18 per cent less than men.