2 out of 3 Bar returners left because of caring responsibilities, but there are tangible business risks to treating this only as a “you” problem…
…What Chambers’ practice managers and clerks can do, and why it matters.
It was days before her second maternity leave was due to start. Liv had been asked to take on a late return in a complex case at an out-of-town court.
She was 16 years call, and had been here many times before. It was a classic “hospital pass” in terms of quality of case prep required, yet this time was different.
Being pregnant, this particular case was both practically AND physically challenging to undertake. She had 2 more weeks to go before the start of her maternity leave. Her due date was just 3 weeks away. And, being so heavily pregnant, she couldn’t even sit safely behind the wheel of her car to drive to court. The case papers were all over the place, requiring far more attention than the 12 hours she’d been afforded overnight to prepare a jury opening. And, on closer consideration, the re-trial time estimate would have taken her well beyond her due date in any event.
It was an impossible ask from the clerks. For once, Liv found her voice to say “No”.
She came back from that leave, too. So why didn’t she stay?
Her second return was a baptism of fire. Complex cases, full commitments, no “easing back in”. Certainly no meaningful conversation about what this new season of life looked like in practice, treading the fine balance between a busy, and very senior, practice and the very constant and real demands of 3 children under 4. There was an huge void of necessary support within Chambers to flex – even if in the very short term – to this particular season of life.
Then, on a later, third return attempt, the financial realities kicked in. Mistakes made in clerks’ room communication whilst on that later, extended leave, made it unaffordable to return. This wasn’t because she was unwilling, but because, without the strategic back-up, the numbers simply did not work.
Yet another female returner “lost to law”.
A Common Problem
Liv is far from alone in this. At the Bar, 2 out of 3 leavers cited difficulties combining work with caring responsibilities as the reason they left. Six in ten lawyers report feeling less optimistic about their career prospects after becoming parents. Research consistently shows that 98% of new mothers wanted to return to work. The desire was there in almost every case. What appears to be missing is the support to make it possible.
The Cost to Chambers and the Bar more widely
Chambers pay for this, whether they track it or not.
Financially, the cost sits in wasted investment in pupils and development, and in replacement recruitment. Pupil awards alone cost between £21,000 and £23,000. More generous offers run from on average £30,000 to a whopping £100,000 at certain London sets.
Strategically, the cost shows up as work concentrating on those who remained, straining wellbeing, weakening the pipeline, and removing the female role models that make progression feel possible for those coming up behind.
Reputationally, it signals something that is hard to unsay: that women do not progress here. This is a message that insidiously damages the gender pay gap and the ability to attract talent in the first place.
Women represent only 31% of equity partners in law firms, 30% of High Court judges, and 21.5% of King’s Counsel at the Bar. These are not abstract statistics. They are the cumulative result of individual moments: an impossible ask made days before leave, a diary nobody thought to manage on return, a financial miscalculation that made coming back unworkable. Each one small enough to dismiss in isolation, but together forming a pattern that the profession has been slow to call out as structurally unsound.
Gold Standard support or the lottery of luck?
Here is what rarely gets said aloud: a return done well is currently chambers-dependent. It can feel like a lottery, and it should not.
Gold standard support is not complicated, but it does need to be consistent. It is transparent and available to all members. It’s not contingent on whichever clerk happened to be paying attention that week or has someone’s back. In practice, this means structured training for practice managers and clerks that covers the entire career break journey. That journey includes from the moment a member announces their leave right through to progression well beyond their return. It means Practice Development Review meetings conducted with genuine empathy and a career success strategy at their core, rather than a box-ticking conversation six weeks after someone walked back through the door. It means policies that reflect the actual reality of returners’ lives: flexible working, equal parental leave, and a clear pathway for what progression can look like in this new season.
Culture Shock
It also means cultural change. Calling out unconscious bias in briefing decisions and the ever-widening gender pay gap. Championing role models and male allies. “Parenting loudly” rather than treating it as something to be managed in the shadows. The barrister who needs diary management that accounts for nursery drop off or after-school care pick-up, or to ask a judge to rise early to take account of a childcare emergency because their child is in hospital, is not an exceptional case. They represent the lived reality of returners’ lives, and clerks are often the first point of contact when that reality needs navigating, and solving.
Business Interest
The business case for the kind of investment that will provide solutions here is not difficult to construct. Organisations with greater gender diversity on Boards report higher returns on invested capital and on sales, and teams with gender diversity are more likely to achieve above-average profitability. Retention is not only the right thing to deliver. It is the commercially obvious thing too.
A Systemic Solution
The results, where this approach has been applied systematically, speak for themselves. My 3 step Retention and Rising training and coaching Framework has delivered the following outcomes:
- More than 170 women retained in law over nine years,
- 93% motivated to continue progressing their careers, and
- a 92% retention rate of career break returners.
This is not the outcome of good fortune. It is what happens when a repeatable framework is in place. One that equips clerks with practical, role-specific guidance, empowers returners and emerging leaders through structured milestone coaching, and embeds the change long enough to make it sustainable. Send a message to find out more about the repeatable retention framework that works.
As one recently promoted career break returner put it: “You were somebody that believed in me from the start. I never thought upon my return that I would get promoted in the year. It just shows what you can achieve if you put your mind to it.”
Women don’t leave the Bar because they stop wanting it. They leave because Chambers stop recognising what it cost them to come back, and what Chambers stands to lose if they can’t stay.
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This blog draws on a panel discussion exploring what the clerks’ room in Chambers can do to support members, covering gaps in support, what good looks like, and the practical steps that actually make a difference.