According to the Solicitors' Regulation Authority (SRA), in 2017 in the UK, women represented 66.6% of new admissions to the roll, and yet, in the same year, just 33% of partners were women. This decreases to 29% at the largest firms. The statistics for other protected characteristics are just as stark: just 21% of lawyers were Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) in the same year; 3% identified as LGB; 2% were trans; and 2% of lawyers at the largest firms were disabled.

What is happening to prevent all of these talented people from pursuing a career in law? How can lateral recruitment be improved to ensure that it isn't exacerbating the issue? What is preventing so many women in the profession from reaching the pinnacle of their careers? And what can be done about it?

In this session, a group of experts will set out the challenge that this conference is seeking to address, and offer solutions and ideas for how to ensure that progress is made in all aspects of diversity in law. These statistics are a damning indictment of the state of the industry and must be remedied; are you ready to change the rules?

In this opening session, our keynote speaker will open up about their professional story, and the trials and tribulations they have experienced along the way. This session will set the tone for a day of challenging, provocative and, ultimately, solutions-focused conversation, by highlighting the power of the individual in bringing about real, meaningful change within their own industry.

In order to stamp out inequality, those with the power to change things must stand up and become advocates for the cause. In the case of gender disparity in the legal sector, it is not enough for the direct beneficiaries of the mission (women in this case) to be its sole supporters. No, for progress to flourish, everyone—regardless of their own personal interest—must gather behind the goal.

In this session, a panel of male advocates proactively fighting for progress on gender equality in the legal sector will explain what diversity means to them, and why they have dedicated their energy to challenging the status quo.

When we talk about the Future of Law there are so many ways in which our industry is rapidly evolving. Does a rise in consulting and alternative working patterns change how women can achieve career success? How will technological advances disrupt the way we work? What skill sets will be most important for the future? This presentation will be bring together a range of expertise and thinking to discuss the opportunities and challenges we face.

In this series of one-on-one interviews, we will hear from people who have experience navigating different aspects of intersectionality at work in the legal industry. What is the multiplier effect in terms of professional disadvantage when we consider other protected characteristics, such as disability, race and sexuality? This session will provide an essential grounding to the day's discussions. What are the benefits of a truly diverse workforce? How can companies do more both to protect their employees from discrimination and to allow them to flourish professionally without compromising their authenticity? And what important lessons can we learn from individuals who have direct experience dealing with these issues?

Talk is cheap, especially when it comes to making progress on diversity metrics. So how do you turn good intentions into good results? What is the secret to effective implementation of new business strategy? And what are some practical steps to take to make sure that your words become actions with the potential to bring about positive change?

Long gone are the days when you qualify, start a job and stay there happily until retirement. Not only are the expectations of employees changing in terms of how they see their careers evolving, but, in a context of frequent disruption by new technology, it is no longer realistic to believe that you won't have to change course at some point, and many of us will be working well into our older years. So how should we be thinking about our careers in the legal profession? How have others demonstrated that agility and flexibility are the keys to success? And what can be learned from their experiences?

The First 100 Years is a ground-breaking history project, supported by the Law Society, Bar Council and CILEx, charting the journey of women in law since 1919. The project is powered by Spark21, a charity founded to celebrate, inform and inspire future generation of women in the profession. In this session, the project's director, Dana Denis-Smith will discuss the initiative, its objectives and what this milestone means for greater efforts towards diversity in the legal sector.

Justine Thornton is a newly appointed High Court Judge. After explaining why she never saw herself as judge material, Justine will look at three themes: why it's so important for women to be at the heart of law; the progress made in putting women at its heart and why women are not applying for senior roles in the numbers they should be.

Three inspirational women will one by one take to the stage to impart one piece of wisdom they've learned from their career, and why this lesson has propelled them forward.

To close the day, we will invite delegates to share their commitments to lead change in their own networks over the next year. What have you learned today? How will you ensure that you are a proactive change-maker? And what do you want to see more of next year?

For anyone beginning a career in any industry, establishing an effective and supportive network is often the most pressing, and challenging, aspect to confront. This is especially so if you are a woman working in law, where senior female role models and mentors are in shorter supply. But how do you actually go about this? What are the tried and tested methods for cross-industry networking? And, once contact is established, how and when should you seek the advice of others? In this session, we'll explore not only the importance of having a healthy support network, but also practical steps that you can take to ensure that you are networking in an effective way.

In this presentation we'll hear from a mentor and their mentee on how they successfully established and built a fruitful relationship, and any tips they have picked up along the way. You will leave the session confident about how to make the most out of the time you spend with your mentor, and ready to maximise this important relationship.

We’ve all seen it. That straightforward legal career path: 3 years law degree, 1 year LPC, 2 years training, qualification and then the marathon to partnership. But one size does not fit all. Whether you are an aspiring lawyer or an NQ looking for the next challenge, this session will help you to evaluate and use your work experience to shape your path to success.

Key presentation takeaways:

• Embrace the diversity of your background and use it to your advantage.
• Keep an open mind, know your options and experiment.
• Focus on your goal. There is always a way!

Succeeding at work is one thing, but it often comes at the cost of personal wellbeing. Packed with practical tips and guidance, this session will cover the big questions facing junior lawyers. Is it possible to navigate a work-life balance in today’s workplaces? How can junior lawyers build a sustainable, long-term career in the legal profession? And how can finding meaning and purpose as you start out as a junior lawyer have a positive impact on your future career?

Anyone who has ever worked in the legal sector knows that intelligence and success are not in short supply here. But with such an oversupply of talented and impressive people flowing into this sector each and every year, how do you ensure that you still catch the attention of influential people? How do you identify skills and competencies that will give you the edge when it comes to recruitment? And then how do you make sure that you remain top of the pile?

In the words of Benjamin Franklin, "Fail to prepare, prepare to fail”. Here lies a powerful message for all who aspire to having the career and the family: Don't leave the biggest and most rewarding challenge of your life to chance. Prepare for it.

If you are a career woman that knows you want a family in the future, a regular career plan just won’t cut it. What you need is a long-term strategy that anticipates the emotional and practical challenges you’ll face when the time comes. That strategy is to babyproof your career; anticipate the challenges working parents face and master the career tools and life skills you’ll need to make it work. If you truly want a shot at having it all, now is the time to act.

In this talk, Dr Asma Vranaki draws from her experience of successfully navigating a career change from a commercial barrister to a legal scholar, to explore what a job in legal academia looks like for women in UK universities in the 21st century.

Law is one of the toughest sectors for achieving a healthy work/life balance, particularly in the first few years. This session will be about sharing hints and tips for how to get on top of your workload without compromising on your precious personal time, and give you reason to be optimistic about the future of your career!

No matter how senior we are, almost all of us will experience Imposter Syndrome in our careers. Georgina will look into the research of what causes the syndrome to unlock practical solutions to overcome it – with some words of wisdom from high-profile sufferers such as Michelle Obama, Mishal Husain and Lady Hale. Georgina will also examine our own tendency to attribute success to luck to look at why the luck myth betrays the next generation. You are not lucky: you’re brilliant!

Success in the legal profession is a long game. It takes years to qualify and even longer to earn your stripes to ascend to partnership. It is unsurprising, then, that your motivation, energy and general enthusiasm can wane during those years in between. This session will give you hints and tips for weathering those mid-career years and retaining your drive and momentum to succeed.

The effluence of women from the Law between admission to the Bar and partnership level suggests that something is going horribly wrong in those crucial middle years. We know that women make good lawyers, that law is a profession in which the accumulation of experience improves your judgement and, ultimately, your ability to deliver in your role. And yet, something is happening to deter a large percentage of women from sticking with this vocation and reaching for those senior positions.

If we want to find a solution, we must first listen to the problems driving these decisions. In this session, a chair will lead a "group think" in which audience members will be invited to talk anonymously about the problems and issues that are facing them at this critical juncture in their career. We will compile the responses into a set of recommendations, which will be delivered to a group of senior law professionals later in the day to consider as they discuss the talent retention problem of women working in Law. We will also publish the results of this on our blog as a set of recommendations, to be considered by those who wish to address the attrition problem within their organisations after the event.

A career in law can be hugely fulfilling and rewarding, but it can also be tough at times. This session will focus on the importance and value of having a creative outlet outside of work, not only for your personal fulfilment and wellbeing but also for the career benefits you might not have anticipated. We will discuss how to find your perfect creative outlet, how to get started, balancing your interests with your work and practical tips on how to deal with pitfalls and obstacles.

We've all heard the stories of junior male associates being invited along for a golf weekend with the senior partners and coming back thick as thieves. But what if you don't like golf and, crucially, still want to build relationship with the people that count. In this session, we'll hear strategic networking tips from someone who has had great success in navigating their way to the top, without having to make it to the eighteenth hole.

Mansplaining. Condescension. Comments about your physical appearance. Comments about your plans to have a family. Questions about your appointment to a case. Challenges from more junior members of staff. Frequently being interrupted. Someone making a point you've already made. Someone taking credit for your work. Aggression. Sexual harassment. Challenges to your leadership.

The list goes on...

How do you deal with these awkward situations at work? Ask a panel of experienced and successful women under Chatham House Rules for their advice dealing with challenges that threaten to throw you off course, and how to come back fighting.

Despite having qualified almost thirty years ago, Rachael Williams has noticed that one aspect of employees' experience that has changed very little is the issue of taking a career break to raise a family. This is especially true for women, who often struggle with confidence or doubt themselves upon re-entering such a high-octane profession after having taken a career break. In this session, Rachael, one of the Back to Law Ambassadors for the Law Society's Recharger programme, will, using a combination of personal and collected experience, provide much reason for optimism for those who are wondering how to balance this complicated task without having to compromise on success in their career.

As the GC role evolves and corporate culture becomes ever more scrutinised, we will explore how the in-house lawyer's role can be used to influence and shape culture.

We need to talk about the menopause. More women are entering (and staying) in the workplace than ever before as the working age continues to rise. As it stands, more than 70% of menopausal women are in the workforce, and women over 50 are the fastest-growing group of workers in the UK. And yet, menopause and its impact is still widely considered an issue relegated to one-on-one conversations between employees and their managers. We know that it is an challenge that will face a large percentage of the workforce over the coming years, and we know that this has the potential to have a negative impact on company performance both on a personal and a wider team level. So why don't we talk about it more? In this session, Lauren Chiren will share personal experiences and explain best practice for dealing with this issue in your organisation, to the benefit of your staff and, therefore, those all important end-of-year results.

There is an adage that says you have to see what you want to become. Today across the US and the UK there are more women entering into law school than their male counterparts, in the UK 60% of starting associates at firms are women. However, the numbers at the top of the chain still don’t reflect gender parity. Only 31% of Fortune 500 companies have female General Counsel leading the legal department and in the UK only 1 in 5 City firms have women in equity partnership roles. How do we build a bench of strong women leaders if they can’t model up?

Kristy will share how we as senior leaders can add value -and revenue- to our respective firms by creating a team of strong female leaders. We will discuss the value proposition of having a diverse work force and include a discussion on cognitive diversity. Kristy will share ideas for making your team more gender balanced from point of hire to mid-level leadership with discussions on policies and work force flexibility. Finally she will discuss authenticity versus playing the man’s game and how to create an environment where you, and the junior lawyers your team, will be recognized as a solid bench from which to pull the next generation of Firm Partners or C-Suite leaders.

In this exclusive preview session, led by the InterLaw Diversity Forum, results will be shared from the updated Career Progression in the Legal Sector report, which was first published in 2010. The goal of the report was to identify the barriers facing these diverse groups and to provide recommendations to address and ultimately solve these issues. The report told us that lawyers from protected classes under the Equalities Act and from disadvantaged backgrounds were working harder and earning less than their straight, white, elite-educated male counterparts. In fact, the more “boxes” they ticked (i.e. intersectionality/multiple identities) with regards to diversity and social mobility, the more pronounced this disadvantage became. We recommended in this report that law firms needed to change their cultures to become more meritocratic by: (i) adopting targets; (ii) changing culture; (iii) training their leaders; and (iv) addressing social mobility.

In a good mentoring relationship, both parties are clear on their goals and how to achieve them. A good mentor not only advises but is also open to advice from their mentee on how to improve their own performance at work. This session will drill down into the key skills and qualities needed to ensure that you are giving your mentee the best possible opportunity to utilise this opportunity to their advantage, and propel them to succeed.

In this session, the chair of our Group Think on the mid-level track earlier in the day will deliver the results of the conversation to those with the power to change things. What can be done on a senior-leadership level to listen to these concerns and address them? If we recognise the problems, we can begin to find solutions, ensuring that we don't lose valuable talent through a failure to listen.

Supported by Pink News

The past few years have seen an increased media spotlight on gender politics, with the #MeToo movement, pay-gap legislation and gender self-identification looming large in national headlines. How can the legal industry ensure it is an inclusive space for marginalised groups, at this time of increasing polarisation? Hear from PinkNews, the world's most-read LGBT+ outlet, about how they have reflected this shifting landscape both in their editorial output and their organisational policies.

This session will round off the senior leadership track by looking at the ways in which we, as managers, can ensure that we're holding the door open behind us to support the younger generation.

We often talk about effective leadership and what this means to a business. But how does this translate into spearheading diversity and inclusion (D and I) practices in your organisation? How can you be an agent of change at your firm? How important is it to have visible executive sponsors on D and I boards? What are the tried and tested techniques to ensure that as leaders, you're in tune with the demands and needs of your workforce? And why does this matter? This session will explore how to lead progress from the top down, and how the simple gesture of being a visible advocate can make a world of difference to efforts towards equality in the workplace.

As lawyers demand that the profession catches up with 21st century ways of working, the seminar will look at the alternatives to traditional private practice and ask if partnership is the be all and end all for ambitious lawyers in the next decade? By staying agile, can you stay in better control of your legal career?

This session will look at the key stages in your life and your career that can have an impact on your overall financial well-being. The session will provide you with financial food for thought and aims to arm you with a list of questions and points to consider when you first (or next!) meet with a financial adviser. From financial independence to insurance and pensions considerations, this session aims to provide you with a little time to focus on and consider your financial wellbeing.

This fun and interactive workshop will unpack what it means to work in a male-dominated industry and asks questions about what the barriers are to equality and whose responsibility is it to make the change. This session is about sharing experiences and insights: What are the ways in which masculinity shows up in your workplaces and what can be done to challenge the practices and cultures that favour our male colleagues? By identifying some of the problems, we can establish the changes that need to happen and who is best situated to make those changes. This session is about how men can actively contribute to more positive cultures. Are there good ways and bad ways to be an ally for equality at work? And what can we expect of men joining the movement for equality? Answering all these questions and raising a whole lot more, this proactive and provocative session will give you insights into how you can bring men along in the fight for gender equality at work and how we can all make more concrete steps towards change.

As awareness of sexual harassment in the workplace continues to increase in the wake of #MeToo, stories still abound of women experiencing sexual abuse at work and failing to report it for fear of professional consequences. This session will act as a guide for anyone looking to understand their rights, and how to help anyone facing the difficulty of sexual harassment at work.

The six key traits of emotional intelligence and their role in your success

More and more people are recognising the value that Emotional Intelligence (EI) plays in business. Optimising your EI skillset is essential for anyone wanting to succeed in business, as well as in their personal and social life.

This fun, participatory and practical workshop will introduce you to the six important traits of EI, and how they can be used to your professional and personal advantage.

You will see how varying levels of EI play out in your day-to-day interactions in a law firm, in your own practice and in the wider world. Using real-life examples and exercises, you will leave the session with clarity around the benefits of optimising these skills at work, and guidelines about how to implement them in your professional (and personal) life.

"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't—you're right" - Henry Ford

Self belief is something that is often in short supply, but is the single biggest contributor to success. As women in the world, we're given many reasons to doubt ourselves, from being pitted against each other based on our physical appearance to having our intelligence routinely questioned by male counterparts. This can have a really wearing effect on our self confidence, which can soon turn into a chronic problem that is complicated to resolve. But don't worry, help is at hand! During this session, we'll hear from a psychologist who can give you ideas and strategies to help to keep your self esteem and confidence in check, enabling you to reach your true potential.

Introducing a refreshing taster session on time management: one of the most crucial topics in business today. To achieve all your goals and become everything you are capable of becoming in life and in business, you must master the management of your time. Research has shown that a sense of control is key to feelings of happiness, confidence and wellbeing, which is only possible when you practice excellent time management skills. Join this session to discover the golden nuggets that have helped the top 1% at the top of their game. This session is guaranteed to be different to any time management training you have previously attended.

In this session, participants will work with communication coaches Sylvia and David on their presentation style and how they can communicate more effectively at work. Be prepared to be stripped back to basics, only to re-emerge stronger and more effective in the way you communicate!

In this presentation, Susannah will share the guidance she wishes she’d had when she started out. Despite the challenges, a career in law can provide you with the flexibility of finding the path that works just for you. You will be equipped with the importance of building resilience and knowledge of what they don’t tell you when embarking on your legal journey.

Takeaways:

- Discover the importance being true to yourself has in a successful career

- By supporting and promoting other women you are also supporting yourself

- Don’t be a mug