Simpson Millar Celebrates International Women's Day 2024

As a female leader within the legal sector, can you share insights into your journey to leadership? How has the landscape for women in law changed during your career?

My journey into a legal career more generally was non-traditional, I have worked in practice for 18 years but only qualified as a Solicitor in 2014.

This meant that while I was technically a trainee Solicitor I had a lot of experience! I was lucky enough that during my time as a trainee the sector I worked in was subject to a lot of change (back in 2013– if you know you know) with the changes to funding, recoverability of success fees and ATE as well as the introduction of new pre-action protocols and portals for certain case types.

These changes provided opportunities for me to get involved, working with a team within the business who were looking at system improvements, new ways of working and how the business was going to react and respond to these new opportunities in our markets.

Part of this work led me right into my first management role, I took on the opportunity of helping to build a new team, with a whole new way of working. It was exciting, daunting, I made some mistakes I’m sure, but I certainly learnt a lot.

Since then I have really embraced taking on roles which give me experience in different areas of our business and give me the opportunity to learn. All of which have given opportunities for leadership. A lot of my leadership experience is not traditional, it isn’t running teams’ day to day – although I’ve done my share of that, leadership for me has been wider initiatives, bigger picture and helping to bring our people together to look at opportunities to make us as a business stronger.

Leadership for me is about inspiring others, showing them a way through a particular problem or task, empowering them to take on challenges and own solutions.

I’m very fortunate that during my career I’ve worked with and for some talented Solicitors, many of whom have been women. While typically women make up the largest portion of the legal workforce, they have been significantly underrepresented in management and senior management positions.

There has certainly been a shift over the years, a welcome one which has seen greater flexibility in the legal sector and more opportunities for progression. While there is still a lot to do, the landscape in legal is changing and I’m delighted to see more women, and other unrepresented groups in senior positions.

 

In the spirit of 'Inspire Inclusion,' how do you actively contribute to developing the talent here at Simpson Millar, especially among women and underrepresented groups in the legal field? Can you share examples of how the firm supports these efforts?

In 2018 I was appointed Training Principal for Simpson Millar, I have held that role ever since, and it is honestly one of the best parts of my job! Being able to support colleagues on their journey to becoming a qualified Solicitor makes my soul happy, an opportunity to share knowledge and experience and to see people achieve their goals just couldn’t be more rewarding.

Prior to 2018, the routes to qualification as a Solicitor at Simpson Millar were quite traditional / typical of what you find in many law firms. There wasn’t a central process, it wasn’t particularly open or transparent, getting a coveted training contract was sometimes more dependent on where and whom you worked for.

We started to change that, we introduced a central process which gave equal opportunities across the whole business for applications, and in 2020 we further expanded our program to introduce more routes to qualification.

As anyone who has looked into a career in law will know it’s expensive, one of the biggest barriers for women and other under representative groups was the cost, this was a barrier to people choosing a career in law, and even for those brave enough to take it on, they sometimes found themselves stuck with limited opportunities for training contracts available and with a lot of student debt.

Our programme now includes routes which provide financial support to colleagues for undergraduate and post graduate academic stages, they also guarantee the on-the-job training requirement – reducing the risk of not qualifying at the end.

These new routes open careers in law to so many people, it goes some way to removing the financial barriers people previously faced, it also gives people more certainty when they start on their journey.

I’m very fortunate to have been given the opportunity to build such a programme here at Simpson Millar, and it grows every year.

Since I took over, I have helped 33 colleagues qualify as Solicitors, of which 25 were women.

I would like to say that all colleagues are appointed on merit alone, our intake process ensures that the panel make decisions based on objective criteria, with parts being anonymous to support this further.

We have an additional 28 colleagues on one of our various routes to qualification at the moment, of which 25 are women.

We’ve had colleagues postpone the start of their training phase for maternity leave, and colleagues who have taken maternity leave during their periods of recognised training, we offer flexibility in hours, and part time training is available.

It’s incredibly important that we support colleagues through this process, which includes supporting them during and after big life events. I feel fortunate to be in a position where I can actively make effect change.

 

What advice would you give to young women aspiring to careers in law, particularly those who wish to advance to leadership roles? How can they navigate the challenges and seize opportunities for growth and leadership?

Law is full of tradition, the traditional routes to qualification, the traditional progression into management and leadership, the ‘way things have always been done’ – my advice is to not worry so much about that.

I have continued my career as it started, in a non-traditional way and I like to think it hasn’t done me any harm, what it has done is give me skills I wouldn’t have got from a traditional approach.

It seems trite to say ‘think outside the box’ and it isn’t really that, it’s more about being open to opportunities, taking risks, and sometimes taking a role which is a ‘side ways’ step because the learning you will get means that you can jump forward in your next role.

Focus on the things that you enjoy, not all parts of a legal career are enjoyable, so think about what you do enjoy and look for opportunities to do more of that or learn more about it.

Be open to what’s happening around you, embrace difficult tasks, challenge yourself to learn about things outside your comfort zone, be engaged with what’s happening in our sector even if it doesn’t directly affect you – does it affect one of your colleagues? It’s important not to just stay in your lane, our lane is Simpson Millar if it affects the business, it affects you even if it’s in an area which isn’t one you work in.

If you do (not all!) but some of these things you will be better rounded for it in the long run and it makes you an interesting candidate, with niche knowledge in your area, but a broader understanding of our business, with skills to lead people.

 

Could you discuss the importance of mentorship and professional development programs, like the Solicitor Training programs, in fostering female talent within Simpson Millar? How do these programs contribute to the professional growth and confidence of women in the firm?

I think mentoring, and professional development programs are important for fostering talent generally, also having set routes clearly articulated and defined gives all colleagues confidence in knowing they have opportunities, and how to go about reaching that next stage of their career or progression.

Historically when I’ve spoken to candidates the biggest reason, they have for leaving a role is because there is a lack of opportunity to progress, or a lack of visibility of what that route might be and how to achieve it.

I have mentioned above, the breakdown of colleagues on our Solicitor Qualification Programme looks when broken down quite crudely men / women ratio – we are certainly more heavily weighted to Women.

But that shouldn’t be a surprise given that roughly 53% of all Solicitors are women, where representation is struggling is in leadership roles with only 32% of all equity partners being women, overall women are underrepresented at Partner level generally (34%) when compared to their male counterparts (Diversity in law firms’ workforce, 2023).

It could be that history is playing out, the reason we have fewer women in leadership roles is because historically they have been underrepresented in the profession. Meaning, there were less women to take on these roles, there might also be other reasons but what I can say is that with a higher proportion of women coming to careers in the law – as evidenced by our Solicitor Qualification Programme intake / qualification breakdown. I can only see these statistics improving with more women in the profession there is more opportunity there to provide a better balance in leadership.

 

Looking ahead, what are your aspirations for women in Simpson Millar? How do you envision the firm evolving to further support and inspire inclusion and the empowerment of women?

Looking ahead I would say that Simpson Millar is in a strong position already, our programmes are expanding to give more opportunities, with different routes and different levels of support. Continuing to grow our own talent through these programmes is key, and I’d like to see the business widen the net further bringing in more routes to qualification than we currently have.

My aspiration for Simpson Millar is to keep building on what we have, to keep looking at how we can support all colleagues to achieve their goals, and where they need it to help shape what their future might look like.