Pressure rather than barriers to entry putting many lawyers off Partnership

Work-life balance and stress are the main reasons legal professionals do not aspire to partnership according to research we carried out when putting together our 2015 Salary & Benefits Benchmarker. 

79% of male lawyers and 64% of female lawyers wanted to make partner but nearly a third of all legal professionals did not have partnership or business leadership aspirations with 46% of those citing flexibility and work-life balance considerations and 37% not wanting to experience any of the stress associated with the position. Only 5% of nearly 2,000 respondents cited barriers to entry or the perception of a glass ceiling as their main reason with very little variation across genders.   

Only a fifth of all lawyers looking for partnership or a business leadership opportunity felt they would achieve that with their current employer.      

Managing Director Kathryn Riley commented “It seems lawyers believe that partnership is a realistic proposition for them and that the doors are open should they wish to progress down that route. There is however going to be a price and firms may find that if they are able to demonstrate just a bit more flexibility then more legal professionals will be prepared to pay it.”

Douglas Scott – the multi-award winning legal recruitment specialists - gathered in data from nearly 2,000 survey respondents and crunched through £166 million of remuneration data when producing their 2015 Salary and Benefits Benchmarker, which is available to download here.