This special report focuses on law firms' gender pay gaps with statistics from the top 50 law firms. This follows the new UK government regulations that came into force in April 2017 which required statutory reporting of the gender pay gap for the first time. The report analyses what individual law firms are doing to fix the gender pay gap, including work allocation, mentoring, maternity support, parental leave, women's lawyers networks with analysis from HR directors and lawyers. The report also analyses the tricky question of whether equity partners' should also reveal their pay gap and the individual choices taken by leading city law firms. It also includes coverage of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee on what action is being taken to address the gender pay gap and comment from the TUC.This cutting edge new report will be essential reading for law firm management and every practitioner interested to understand the gender pay gap in law and how women can be supported in their roles.

This is a major piece of fundamental research and analysis by one of the most experienced and able commentators in the Law. It is exceptionally well researched and written. I commend it to all who want to understand the true position in this very important field. It is truly outstanding.
Nigel Pascoe QC

Complete with relevant quotations and views and government guidance on reporting and making the appropriate calculations, this publication is an extremely useful and practical contribution to the discussion in the U.K. in particular. I have also found it to be very helpful in order to understand the current position as regards gender pay discrepancies and how far it is indeed a virtuous circle when firms address this sensitive issue by being more transparent and proactive in bridging the gap. The report clearly shows that improvement is long overdue and that the reasons or excuses relating to recruitment, less assertive females, the maternity leave and childcare or family responsibilities are now historic. Effective action can have clear potential advantages including recruitment and winning and retaining clients.
Dr Linda S Spedding
International Lawyer and Advisor

The report features terse, insightful and very readable (almost unputdownable) commentary on this vexed and always controversial subject, supported by any number of charts and statistics — also readable and revealing — with the focus on comprehensive statistics from the top fifty (mainly UK) law firms.
Phillip Taylor MBE
Richmond Green Chambers

Stephanie Hawthorne
Freelance journalist and editor
[email protected]

Stephanie Hawthorne has been a full-time freelance journalist since April 2017, after editing Pensions World magazine for 28 years. Her other editorships included Counsel (the journal of the Bar of England and Wales) and its offspring, Money Matters, from 1997 to November 2007; and Charity World. An honours law graduate of King’s College London and winner of numerous prizes for financial journalism, Ms Hawthorne started her financial career in 1980 as a researcher/ marketing specialist for a national independent financial adviser and subsequently a leading life office, and then moved on to Insurance Age, Planned Savings and Financial Times’ Money Management. An occasional broadcaster on BBC, Sky and Channel 5, as well as on radio, she has contributed articles to the Financial Times, the Mail on Sunday, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph and The Observer, as well as numerous magazines on property, personal finance, the law and human resources.