Jacket-on-chair culture - shaking it up

Women lawyers are up in arms against long work hours and want a new model

There was a time when Kirsty Dougan, as a junior female lawyer then, found it really cool to charge through her day and knock off toward the wee hours of the morning.

It took the mother of two "quite a long time" - long enough until she was stricken by a bad illness and confined to bed - to realize she could never be paid more enough to endure the terribly long working hours, and having to remain accessible round the clock without showing any sign of tiredness like before.

More importantly, when Dougan looked at how far a career in law firms could lead her to, all she could see is a male-dominated partnership structure with barely any diversity, flexibility or work-life balance. She knows exactly this is not what she wants, and a certain building block of the industry should undergo something of a shake-up.

Just like almost every industry or profession that's traditionally male-dominated, the legal sector has long been known for its "men's club" culture at partnership level, where women are grappling with a morass of gender-based challenges to make their mark and climb up the career ladder.

While the number of female trainees at major law firms in Hong Kong remains roughly equal to that of their male counterparts, when it comes to partner level, the number of males can be as much as three times more than that of females, according to a survey done by recruitment company Taylor Root.

"One of the inherent and fundamental challenges comes with the partnership structure, the way law firms are structured, which stands as a major hurdle for female lawyers making to the top and smash the glass ceiling," says Dougan.

"The hierarchy structure, think of it like a pyramid, only allows so few lawyers to reach the very top. And the sacrifices they have to make are immense."

Amid an industry that entertains the notion "if you cannot hack it, why are you here?" there is no shortage of legendary workaholic stories, says Josephine Qu, a junior associate at King & Wood Mallesons in Beijing.

Qu recalls having worked with a female partner, who became quite famous in hospital for holding her Blackberry and laptop even when her labor pains began.

The hardworking female partner is just one of the superwomen in the legal industry, physically showing up in the office and working deep into the night with their pregnant bellies until the last week before giving birth. Even during maternity leave, they work at home as if they can go on without any break, she says.

When they get back from maternity leave, they're likely to have a tough time striking a balance between work and baby nursing. Without supportive bosses and colleagues, they could hardly live this through, quips Wang Ruonong, a trainee at a London-based law firm in Beijing.

"That may explain an industry-wide leaking pipeline, where female lawyers are leaving law firms or even the industry in their 30s, as they cannot see any possibility of coming back home at what's considered to be a reasonable time and getting places for their children in such arduous time frames," she laments.

"Basically, there's a lack of sympathy amid the traditional partnership structure, which completely ignores the fact that women, physically and emotionally, do not want to endure the crazy hours, and sacrifice the chances of getting married, building up families and developing hobbies although they may have helpers at home," reckons Dougan.

In a nod to an industry-wide cry for work-life balance and gender equality, Dougan, who's now head of Asia for US-based legal services firm Axiom, is determined to introduce disruption and innovation to the traditional legal profession.

"We took the whole law firm model upside down and say the partnership structure doesn't work. We strike it all out and start again."

The new business model, as what Axiom is involved in, sends qualified lawyers to clients' offices to supplement its in-house legal team on a contract basis.

Lawyers of this type don't offer legal advice or opinions like their peers in traditional law firms do, but they do the execution, support volumes of "business as usual" work, handle specific projects like M&A deals, and fill the gap to cover for someone on sick or maternity leave. For companies, it stands as a much more efficient and cost-effective option to bring lawyers with specialist legal skills on board. For lawyers involved, there's the benefit of regular working hours, flexibility and potential work-life balance that moves in line with their working capacity.

Over the past few years, Dougan has spent a long time pitching the idea, dispelling a certain degree of skepticism and educating the market about what they really are.

"We are all about disruption and innovation like Uber, Airbnb and Amazon in the professional services sector," she explains. "In countries like the US, people understand what disruption means and they are looking to be part of it, while in Asia, people are naturally skeptical of disruptive things. Companies would say, 'I love your story but come back to me in five years when you have a track record'. It takes kind of longer to adopt new ways of doing things here and the learning curve remains much steeper."

So far, Axiom has beefed up its presence across Asia with offices in Hong Kong and Singapore. Although it bets big on making inroads on the Chinese mainland potentially next year, there are a couple of open questions ahead and, at the heart of them, are the regulatory uncertainties.

Although Axiom may continue to stand at the doorstep of the Chinese mainland market for quite a time, Qu says she had heard of its new business model long before. The young female lawyer is more than happy to see someone making an effort to bring in something non-traditional to the traditional legal profession.

"Though I may still follow the 'old-fashioned' path of switching to the company's in-house legal department when I finally decide to leave the law firm, I really hope the new business model, as a potential game-changer for our industry, could provide a new path," she notes.

"For female lawyers working in law firms, there's barely any role model to depict what their career future could be like. When they want to get out, there is no alternative path available for them. But, there is now, something like Axiom," says Dougan.

The industry veteran aims high to stamp out the years-long jacket-on-chair culture, encouraging "smarter" working in a non-traditional environment rather than sticking to the tradition of presenteeism. What's more, she's looking to dispel the profession-wide stigma towards part-time working, making it a feasible option for female lawyers.

"All in all, there is a deeply-rooted conception that if women are strong, they're bossy or aggressive. But we never call a man in such a manner. And, for those who are passive or not aggressive enough, they may be termed as weak or lacking self-confidence in doing this job," Dougan professes. "I myself, passionately, believe that women never need to act and think like men to succeed and get to the top. Women don't have to adapt their behaviors to convey the so-called experience and authority in the profession and our society as a whole."

sophia@chinadailyhk.com