The Rise of the Woman Law Firm Founder
Is it just me, or are more women choosing to start their own law firms?
Over the past several months it seems like barely a day goes by without seeing a new woman announcing the start of her new law firm or solo practice. I was not sure if it was just within my network or a boarder trend that others were also observing. I created a Google Form to assemble some more information on the subject. The Form was shared on LinkedIn and re-shared by many (thanks for getting the word out!).
I received 40 responses on the form. The respondents spanned from all across Canada and even internationally from women in the US (New Orleans, Texas and New York), UK (London, Cardiff, Liverpool and Manchester) and even Cyprus. It is obviously a very small sample size and still tied quite tightly to my social media network, but I was quite surprised by the trends in the responses.
Often when a woman leaves an established law firm (or anyone leaves for that matter) the dialogue becomes that they chose to slow down and/or that they could not “cut it”. That assumption is there even when one leaves to build a brand new business from scratch. When asked to respond anonymously to the question “Why did you start your own firm?” only a small handful made reference to billable hours and family commitments as being a factor. A much more common theme was “flexibility”, which does not necessarily mean less hours. Below are the most common themes (some responses are edited throughout this article for clarity):
To do things differently, to expedite change and take advantage of efficiencies.
“Tired of Big Law and ‘this is the way we have always done it.’ I didn’t perceive that I had the ability to create meaningful change at my old firm.”
“I wanted to do things differently and on my own terms.”
“To get away from the bullshit, archaic ways, and lack of profitability.”
“I wanted to be in control of a business which could be agile and responsive to a changing legal environment…. People were very stuck in their ways, the politics in the firm were petty and the pace of change was glacial.”
“Tired of big firm inefficiencies.”
“I wanted to lower the overhead and have control over the type of culture I wanted and the people I wanted around me.”
Discrimination, Sexism and Cultural Issues
“I was absolutely sick of sexism and racism in Big Law.”
“The law firms that I worked at had such bad culture and didn’t care about my growth and happiness.”
“I was tired of belittling and degrading comments.”
“I returned from maternity leave and was not adequately supported.”
“My former firm, that I owned with others, did not conduct business that aligned with my core values.”
“Intolerable behaviours at my last firm.”
“My firm would not continue to allow me to work from home and I had a very long commute.”
“I was told I had to return to the office.”
“I was made to feel that I could not take time off (go for lunch, take my full vacation, actually not work while on vacation). I was expected to be on call 24/7.”
Financial Reasons
“I was tired of managing everyone else’s problems so that they could make more money while I didn’t.”
“Why would I continue to build someone else’s dream when I can build my own the way I envision it?”
“I thought I could make more money doing business differently. I was right.”
“More money.”
“I looked at my hours worked, the money I was bringing in and my firm dictated overhead allocation. I started to wonder what I was actually getting for the overhead allocation when I felt insufficiently supported by legal assistants, law clerks and associate lawyers. It felt like it was a constant battle for support. I also did not use other aspects of the firm overhead and saw other aspects as not useful in the future (such as expensive downtown office space). Ultimately, the economics of staying made zero sense.”
“I did not want to be an eternal associate.”
Family Reasons
“The lack of flexibility at my old firm did not work with being a parent.”
“To be able to work around my chidden.”
“I was having to justify the time I needed to spend with my young children.”
I also asked the respondents a slightly different question: What were they trying to achieve by starting their own firm? I asked that question because those of us who leave have many options. The easiest of which is just to join another legal workplace. But what motivates women to start their own business instead? What are they hoping to achieve? Below are the most common themes.
Freedom and Control
“Freedom to choose and not be criticized for not fitting into a mold.”
“I want to have control over my life and my time.”
“Freedom from the unreasonable and often unfair expectations of my old firm. Freedom from fights about credit allocations with other partners. Freedom to work with clients that appreciate and value my work; freedom to spend more time outside of work with my family and friends. To take back my life.”
“Freedom and Growth.”
“Freedom in all aspects of life. Financial freedom, freedom to deal with the cases in accordance with my values, freedom to decide who to work with etc.”
“Flexibility of hours and case load.”
“I want to do this while also creating a life I love where I have time, financial, and location freedom.”
A Healthy Work Culture
“Equitable treatment of employees and accommodations for everyone so law is a career that doesn’t lead to early death.”
“A true culture of respect and teamwork.”
“Providing service that I could not do within a law firm, while staying true to my values.”
“A diverse team that has work life balance and enjoys practicing law.”
“A supportive work environment for other women, less working hours, better quality of legal work.”
“I’m trying to achieve change. Creating a future which encourages individuality, creativity and flexibility.”
“Further women’s careers.”
“Energies going to the legal work and growing the practice, not on constantly feeling obliged to speak up about fellow partners having sex with their trainees, racism and sexism within the practice, huge gender pay gap etc.”
“Flexibility, autonomy and change in the profession.”
“To keep excellent lawyers in private practice (i.e. not let the system drive them out.)”
To Better Serve Clients (and More Diverse/underserved Clients)
“The firm mission is to find solutions for clients.”
“To serve clients in a modern way.”
“Being more tech savvy/wise and being able to implement processes.”
“Practice law without the bureaucracy (that also infringed on my family).”
“To help small, female-founded businesses get legal advice. I believe no business is too small.”
“Better quality legal work.”
“Success in ‘doing good’ helping others.”
“It is trite but to help people. I started with wanting to help clients resolve legal problems at work in a compassionate and practical way, and now am focused on building a law firm and structuring our practices so work adds positively to our team’s life and wellbeing. In turn the team is able to help many more clients in a compassionate and practical way than I ever could.”
“I want to help real people with their real problems.”
I truly appreciate everyone’s responses and insights. I can personally relate to a lot of them.
Another fascinating observation from the group was the size of the businesses that women are building. I went into this assuming that the vast majority of people that I will hear from will be sole practitioners. Boy was I wrong. Only 32% of respondents fell into that category. The rest of us are growing larger firms with 4+ lawyers and staff. By building firms with some bench strength, and with many indicating an intention to continue growing, I would bet that we are taking a bite out of the business of other established firms. According to the form responses, about 30% of us had clients move over from our prior firms (lower than I expected) and nearly 50% of us get most of our business from referrals. Social media also makes up a source of business for many of us.
A lot of you made comments about the rise of women law firm owners. Most of the respondents witnessed such a trend in their own networks (although a few did not and see women leaving for other careers instead). With regards to why people think women are starting their own firms now, the respondents had this to say:
“Women are no longer staying quiet and are demanding space where they should have always been provided with space.”
“I think women are fed up and realizing that they don’t have to put up with the culture of this profession.”
“I think women often make decisions through a different process than men and the younger women though a different process than the old guard. Women are tired of confirming to what is expected (based on how lawyers have always practiced) of them when they can see a different path that will generate income and be more rewarding and more authentic to who they are and their core values. It also offers increased flexibility to work when and where you want to.”
“To be properly valued and live a healthier lifestyle.”
“Many strong and courageous women simply cannot continue to accommodate a broken and inequitable system. These women will continue their hard work to pioneer the necessary change for future generations of smart and capable women.”
“The people I have spoken to said they were not supported at their firms and were also not paid enough. Instead, they were overloaded and extremely stressed to the point of illness.”
“We can’t seem to make the necessary change in mid-size firms because we can’t get the critical mass necessary to do that.”
“Women have great ideas and these may be ignored at a firm - nothing is more frustrating.”
“The paradigm of the traditional path to success is a mirage after 2020.”
“Women are now making more than their male counter-parts in a lot of homes, while still having to face mother-hood, the tasks of being a mother, and generally work-life balance that can only be awarded when starting your own practice.”
“The law is still a male-dominated industry - and women are exhausted that no accommodations are being made for them.”
What happens next?
The Law Society of Ontario assembles statistics annually through its annual report and snapshot reports. They are very delayed in getting released and so we do not yet have much in the way of profession-wide data since the pandemic. It would be interesting to check those numbers over the next few years to see if there is hard data to support the perceived trend of more women starting their own law firms. I am also going to pay with the Pirical dataset next week to see if their database is capable of answering that query.
In terms of where the profession goes from here, I am interesting to see how this plays out. Will more firms pop up as competition for the established firms? I hope so.
Will we continue to grow our firms in size? I think we will. I met several women in law who had started their own firms back in 2019. All of them still own their own firms and all of them have grown their firms significantly both in terms of overhead and in terms of revenue and exposure. There is a path for us to follow.
Could there ever be a truly female-led “Big Law” firm where like-minded women lawyer entrepreneurs come together to try and build something big from the ground up? I think that is possible and I would bet that it is likely.
Where do you think the market goes from here? Are you surprised by any of the form responses? Comment below. I would also love it if some of you subscribed to the Substack!
Brilliant article. I left practice for many of these reasons, (and a transatlantic move).
I am seeing the trend here both in the UK, and here in California. Vive la revolution. :-)