"Rights" for Equity partner in law firm

[popmum]

Hi - on behalf of a friend, does anyone know what 'rights' a friend may have? She is an equal equity partner in a law firm with 2 other blokes - effectively self employed. We think she'd only get maternity allowance, but wondered if any other people in this situation had got any more - either through negotiation or by law?

She is not preg now, but would like to sometime in the future.

Thanks a lot

She is effectively self-employed and will therefore only be eligible for mat allowance. She should read the partnership trust deed she signed as the details will be in there, if different to normal.

Her best bet is to negotiate, but she's not in a very strong position really.

I think in most partnerships the partners fund their own mat leave!

Without wishing to sound obvious, she should check the partnership agreement to see what it says. A friend of mine is equity partner too and is entitled to 6 months off (don't know about money side of things though!)

a friend of mine recently became an equity partner in a law firm and she negotiated stuff like maternity leave as part of the agreement - not sure what your friend can do after the event

Thanks - I think prob is (sounds v. silly, but this my friend, not ME) the agreement has nothing about it - as she seriously didn't think she'd ever be in this kind of position, but since then has met someone and now live together.....benefit of hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Doesn't sound like to me she has much of a leg to stand on.

Anyone else with experience?

I think she does have a leg to stand on - a third of the equity in the firm. ie it's going to be a whole load easier for the other two partners to agree to something around industry standard, even if it wasn't in the agreement, than to loose her.

most law firms I know do this by precedent and not through the partnership deed. ie someone negotiated something once, and then that is taken as good for everyone until someone negotiates something better. I guess if it isjust her and 2 blokes precedent doesn't apply.

I worked for one of the magic circle for ages and the female partners took full drawings for the first three months of maternity leave, and I THINK nothing after that (don't quote me) but were expected back pretty pronto. I don't think any of them took more than 5 months.

My top tip - don't even begin to discuss it until she is well and truly pregnant. Then she needs to sit down the men and TELL them what she wants (being reasonable about it obviously) - and negotiate. She is 1/3 of the business so clearly in a strong position!hth

Message withdrawn

dunno!
are they a bit sad at the moment?

bump - anyone else have any experience?

I have a little bit of experience. Historically, maternity rights were governed entirely by the partnership deed and that's still largely the case. But the Law Society has recently introduced a set of regulations called the Solicitors Anti-Discrimination Rules. These apparently state that partners must be allowed the same maternity rights as employees. I say "apparently" because I'm not aware of anyone having tried to test the legal status of these rules and, when you read them, you'll see that they are rather onerous. You can get them of the Law Soc website (if you can't find them, let me know and I'll try to work out how to do a link!).

Agree with Princesspeahead, there is just a "going rate" worked out by some trailerblazer and you need to hope it's not you... does the firm have a policy of more than stat minimum for its employees? I think the line to run, apart from I am one third of the business, is that it would be crazy for an owner of the business to get worse treatment than her staff. Or you could try to get comparables from other firms? I got 6 months on full drawings, hard to say what mat leave did to the discretionary element of partner pay

Thanks very much. Will send her the law soc. info.

Problem is she is the trailblazer and there are no other members of staff - 3 partners + secretary (said it was a small firm!) so no prescedent.

She had a partnership meeting the other day so will see how she gets on.