Women in law stay. Leaders emerge.
If your law firm is, or Chambers are, losing career break returners, you’re not only losing “a lawyer”; you’re also losing capacity, continuity, credibility, whilst at the same time broadcasting it to your market.
In the legal profession, rumours spread: “She didn’t come back;” “They couldn’t make it work;” “It’s not really set up for that.” Once they stick, more overt damage is caused to recruitment, retention, and confidence, long before the next resignation occurs.
As a leader, you may feel the operational hit immediately. The cases and court hearings don’t disappear; the client expectations/ demands don’t soften; the committee load doesn’t lighten. Those responsibilities simply land on a smaller group of people, usually the same reliable ones, until the middle ranks thin out and everything becomes reactive.
The trap is the traditional explanations that people have been trotting out for years and, on the face of it at least, sounds sensible.
The comforting story that keeps you stuck
“We know why women leave. It’s personal choice, maternity, or the nature of the job.”
This old-school approach is comforting because it implies inevitability. If it’s “just life”, then the only option is to be kind, keep reasonable policies updated, and hope the individual can make it work.
But that story doesn’t match what we already know about the culture more widely. A recent Gender Pay Gap at the Bar report, for example, found a marked difference in pay between men and women from the very outset of their careers, long before “lifestyle choices” might credibly explain the gap. That matters because it points to a pattern many senior lawyers and leaders miss. Outcomes diverge early due to how work and progression opportunities are distributed from the get-go, not simply because women opt out later.
Maternity return is often where the pain becomes visible, but is rarely where the problem begins.
In legal organisations, attrition is usually driven by tension between the traditional, rigid approach around work allocation, for example, what “availability” means in practice, what happens to someone’s profile when they are out of sight, even if temporarily, and whether decisions are made consistently or through informal arrangements and ad hoc agreements.
When a maternity returner leaves, leaders often focus on the exit – the flexible working request, the phased return, the childcare logistics – but the real cause is usually simpler. Staying started to feel logistically as opposed to financially costly to them.
Why this becomes a reputational problem (fast)
Losing one person hurts, but the bigger risk is the reputational signal.
If women leave shortly after a return from a maternity career break, the market reads it as an unmanaged problem. Ambitious juniors notice; instructing solicitors notice; clients who care about – and demand equal – representation notice. Even people who don’t talk about EDI still clock whether a place can hold onto its talent without issue.
And inside the organisation, the cost compounds: fewer mid-senior women mean fewer future leaders, fewer visible role models, and a thinner pipeline for complex, high-value work.
So the fix for CEOs or People Heads isn’t “a better policy document”. It’s a retention plan you run repeatedly, without reinventing the wheel for each and every individual returner.
How to stop the drop-off: Raising the Bar – The 3 Step Framework
Here’s the shift: stop treating retention as an individual negotiation and start treating it as a capability you build inside your organisation, through a repeatable retention framework.
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Equip (Training)
Equip, through training, the people who shape daily reality, because they are often the difference between “she stayed” and “she left”.
his includes, in law firms, partners, HR/ People heads and heads of department; at Chambers, practice directors/ managers, management committee members and Clerks (because allocation and diary pressure are often where tensions arise).
What the training must cover (practically, not as window dressing or PR):
- Where progression stalls in your specific setting (often mid-senior and post-parental leave)
- The points of tension that make staying costly: unpredictability, opaque allocation, informal, last minute, availability expectations
- What “good” looks like on a phased or flexible return: how to protect profile and pipeline, not just reduce hours
- How to make consistent, defensible decisions so the most confident negotiator isn’t inadvertently the only one rewarded
The outcome of Equip is simple: Boards, leaders and clerks know what to do on a Monday morning, not just what to say publicly.
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Empower (1-1 coaching)
Training changes awareness (and, according to one report, improves productivity by 22%). Coaching changes behaviour (and, according to that same report, delivers a whopping 88% productivity improvement).
Empower the individuals who are carrying the retention risk (both the decision-makers and the women you’re seeking to retain) so they can navigate the real conversations and trade-offs without conversations turning into office politics or polarising debates.
This might include:
- Coaching leaders to make clear, consistent decisions, and communicate them well
- Coaching returners on boundary-setting, confidence, and dynamic re-entry strategy aligned with the realities of a life in law
- Coaching around visibility and progression so “returning” doesn’t morph into “stagnating”
The outcome of Empower is fewer ad hoc compromises and misunderstandings, and more women staying long enough to reach the point where leadership is both realistic AND attractive.
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Embed (Coaching community for longevity)
Some retention efforts fail for one simple reason. They rely on one champion, one moment, or one crisis. Embed stops them failing particularly where old, and bad, habits start to re-emerge.
A coaching community or group coaching accessibility creates:
- Ongoing reinforcement of what good looks like
- Shared language for successfully handling tricky scenarios
- Accountability to create patterns around allocation and progression
- Peer support, so leaders aren’t handling sensitive issues in isolation
The outcome of Embed is cultural proof: where people truly feel and see, through daily behaviours, that “women thrive here,” rather than just hear it said.
The likely objections (and the straight answers)
“We can’t change the nature of the job.” Of course, you can’t change advocacy or deadlines. You can change the creation of unnecessary chaos: opaque allocation, predictable last-minute pressure, and inconsistent decisions that punish those returners with least room to absorb it.
“We treat everyone the same.” In an uneven reality, “the same” often produces uneven outcomes. What’s needed is consistency plus judgment, not a fiction that simply does not exist in reality.
“We don’t want this to become a culture-war thing.” Then don’t frame it that way. Frame it as capacity protection and risk reduction, keeping your pipeline strong, protecting continuity for clients and instructing solicitors, and defending the reputation of the organisation.
The point
If you’re losing maternity returners, your firm or Chambers isn’t just losing one talented female lawyer. It’s leaking the very layer that becomes future leadership. This, in turn, (whether you like it or not), will be interpreted by the market as a detrimental statement about your standards, your leadership, and your credibility.
A repeatable retention plan is how to change the outcome: Equip your leaders; Empower individuals with coaching; Embed the learning so it sticks.
Use the Contact Page to find out more: https://nikkialdersoncoaching.com/connect-with-a-coach-for-women-lawyers/