City Law Firms stick with Stonewall - Times

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www.thetimes.co.uk/article/city-law-firms-stick-with-stonewall-q0b3jkr0c sorry, share tokens don't work on my laptop

Not quite that clear cut. This is a really good piece with Alison Bailey commenting *Allison Bailey, a lesbian barrister, is suing Stonewall for allegedly seeking to put pressure on her chambers, Garden Court, to sack her from the set after she publicly voiced gender-critical comments. She is also suing Garden Court.

Calling for organisations to quit its diversity scheme, Bailey tells The Times: “No employer or government department should associate themselves with Stonewall, including law firms and barristers’ chambers. They [Stonewall] have shown a complete disregard for the rule of law.”*

Really good about SW getting ahead of the law, which essentially means 'breaking it'

I have a low opinion of law firms - but this is chump change to them.

They could be getting asked by potential clients about rainbow credentials and until the clients start complaining, they won’t stop them (and will then do so very quietly as they pounce on the next fad). The lawyers and partners generally don’t give a monkeys - it’s management making the decisions that this will make the business stand out as more attractive to clients and food for new employees (although that is storing up a whole batch of issues for later). Recently it was very much promoting ethnic minorities (only certain ones though, generally male too). That’s fine quiet.

Well, the Law Society is fully TWAW and solicitors have a professional duty to encourage diversity and inclusion (which goes beyond the EA2010 and into social/cultural factors) and can be struck off for not doing so, so it's not surprising really.

Plus, many of these firms recruit 100+ university students per year each, so any law firm HR dept (which includes their grad recruitment team) that decides not to bow to gender ideology does so at its peril. They need those trainees.

Law is an interesting area. On an individual level, lawyers were ahead of the pack in seeing gender identity ideology as nonsense, but on a group (corporate) level it might be that they'll lag well behind. And those formulating and drafting the laws could lag behind absolutely everyone.

There's been some interesting articles in the Times on the Law and SW and the comments have been very revealing, so I can't imagine law firms are ignorant of the impact of being in any 'political' camp. I made a comment on one, that as a woman I would expect my lawyers to show a good equality & diversity policy but if they were SW champions, no thanks. I got an awful lot of ticks

Don't forget the widely read Roll On Friday article. I have a feeling that quite a few will leave SW within the next couple of years - non reviewal. Perhaps a lot of re-thinking is going on because this article really isn't saying everyone is staying - lots of no comment/no replies

What it says to me is that the adoption by law firms is among the more cynical and skin deep by companies and institutions, and they'll be able to drop Stonewall with very little soul searching. But because Stonewall aren't getting as deeply embedded into law firms as they do elsewhere, there's no hurry, and seemingly no reputational risk, at least yet.

My sister works at a magic circle law firm where 2 of the partners have come out as TW & the toilets are “gender neutral”. I think it might go pretty deep. Stonewall made sure to capture the City before they really went for the government. Dentons is a massive law firm & they all know each other

None of the big firms will leave stonewall until they are all ready to do so: they will be terrified that they will lose out on new recruits. Personally I think it unlikely that the best recruits will be very bothered: it's hardly the wokiest types who go for a career in City law.

I was a partner in one of these firms. Almost all of the career disadvantage suffered by women was because of female biology- the timing of critical career points against the ticking of the biological clock was a particular problem. Likewise, one had to be very careful not to give the impression of having a "lady brain", because there were enough people (colleagues and clients), even before the trans nonsense who were willing to believe that it existed. The infiltration by stonewall is very depressing.

All the Stonewall stuff is an easy way of looking progressive and "nice". It costs a great deal less than doing anything which would actually help women, such as creating more flexible career paths or helping with childcare.

Cooking up letter to my old firm

The thing is, female lawyers are significantly underrepresented at middle and senior levels in the majority of city law firms - the only level at which female representation is equal or higher than that of men is at the junior level (trainees and junior associates).

And most of these women subscribe to gender ideology as that's what they were taught is normal at university.

So law firms asking their female lawyers whether they mind sharing their bathrooms, etc are going to hear predominantly from women who either (1) believe in gender ideology or (2) know enough about the issue to know they'd be risking their career if they speak out against it.

So city law firms are right when they say that the majority of their female lawyers are fine without single-sex spaces, because this majority is straight out of uni since most city firms struggle to retain women once they start having children anyway.

although that is storing up a whole batch of issues for later

Indeed. They are hiring Red Guards into organisations where all the drivers are commercial. It will come back to bite them. Those people cannot be appeased.

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It's disappointing. I'm a female partner in a large law firm. Last year I took a deep breath and stuck my head above the parapet to ask if we should continue to align ourselves with Stonewall. I didn't get the brush off and got the impression that our diversity team was considering it but disappointingly nothing has changed. Law firms tend to move as a pack so once a few of the larger firms break ranks I would predict many others will follow. But that hasn't happened yet.

I've read the article now (my comment above was based on the headline) and it is interesting to see that one of the female law firm partners interviewed has said similar to me - that no firm wants to jump first.

Still members for now.

Sentiment of staff doesn't necessarily match from what I know.

Watching this one closely. There is a problem thats going to the top here...

@eurochick

I've read the article now (my comment above was based on the headline) and it is interesting to see that one of the female law firm partners interviewed has said similar to me - that no firm wants to jump first.

Allison Bailey's case, depending on the outcome, could become a legal firm tipping point. That doesn't begin until next year though.

At a law firm. Myself and a female colleague questioned the affiliation with Stonewall (after the Maya judgement so we were safe, not particularly brave!). The 'diversity team' responded they were sticking with the affiliation. Now surveys and pronouns are coming through...