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As at most City firms, Allen & Overy already allows junior lawyers and support staff to take up flexible working. But equity partners - the most senior lawyers - have been regarded as too important not to be working full time. From May, even the most senior members of the firm will be able to work a four-day week or take an additional 52 days leave, for up to eight years.

It is the most visible attempt yet by a big City firm to address the gender imbalance in its partnership. This year, 62 per cent of the graduates the firm hired were female but only 15 per cent of its partners are women.

David Morley, Allen & Overy's senior partner, said the reason for the lack of female partners was not sexism but because many young women found the prospect of becoming a partner unappealing. Law firms have not been active enough at offering alternatives to keep them, he added.

Many women leave in their early 30s, on the verge of becoming partners, after deciding that starting a family is inconsistent with the demands of commercial law at the top level. Allen & Overy analysed the career tracks of its best-performing associates and found that its brightest young women lawyers left on the verge of partnership at twice the rate of their male colleagues.

The ratio of male to female partners is similarly small at Allen & Overy's rivals, such as Clifford Chance, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Linklaters.

Mr Morley said that firms must find new ways of keeping young women, even at a reduced level of involvement, or they would struggle to remain competitive. "If you look forward over the next ten years, are successful firms still going to have only 15 per cent of their partners being women?" he said. "The answer's got to be no. The trends are pretty clear. We believe that it's going to be a matter of competitive advantage if you've been able to put in place systems and policies which encourage more women to come into the partnership."

Equity partnership brings significant rewards - more than £1 million a year at a "magic circle" firm - yet the demands are onerous. Eighty-hour weeks are common, with frequent travel and constant demands from clients, which intensify during a big deal or in the build-up to a case. Clare Maurice, 55, now senior partner of Maurice Turnor Gardner was the first woman promoted to partner at Allen & Overy at the age of 31 in 1985. She said that maintaining a career at the highest level in a top firm while balancing a family was difficult. "You are juggling and pedalling like mad," she said.

Dominique Graham, director at Graham Gill, the legal consultancy, said that many equity partners may be reluctant to take up part-time working. "If you're at that level, they need you full time, all the time. It's not a question of being male or female. When you're at the top end, you work your socks off."

Mr Morley said that some partners were sceptical about flexible working. "It's a complex issue," he said. "We've spent a lot of time talking to our associates and partners trying to understand the dynamics. If there was an easy answer, firms would have done it a long time ago. But we are willing to give it a good try."

(Source: The Times, January 22, 2010)