Breaking the glass ceiling: women lawyers and the leadership challenge for law firms

EY Law - Although women represent a growing proportion - and even a majority - of the student body in law schools in Latin America and other regions, this presence does not translate, proportionally, into leadership positions within law firms, corporate legal departments, international organizations or the judicial system. The phenomenon known as the "glass ceiling" is still in force: a structural barrier, often invisible, that limits the advancement of women in the legal profession.

According to various industry studies, while women make up more than 50% of the core staff in law firms, only 15% to 25% reach partner positions (World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report 2024). In higher judicial bodies, female representation continues to be lower, despite institutional commitments to parity. In an area such as ours, which is international trade, only 15% of world trade is led by women (WTO, 2022). 
This phenomenon is not due to a lack of ability, merit or aspiration on the part of women, but to a combination of factors such as lack of visibility and sponsorship within organizational structures, gender bias, often unconscious, in the evaluation and promotion processes, rigid institutional culture, insensitive to the realities of work-life balance, and scarce presence of female leadership models in the legal field.

Forming legal leaders: proposals and strategies

To reverse this trend, it is not enough to "open opportunities". It is necessary to develop a clear, sustainable and transformative institutional strategy. Women need mentors, committed to clear goals for increasing female leadership, with evaluations that include bonuses for those who sponsor and meet the goals.  Organizations must expressly commit to including a percentage of women in their leadership in an open and transparent manner.  Some ways to achieve this goal should include: 

1. Promote mentoring and sponsorship programs
Successful models of career advancement show that structured and active mentoring networks have a significant impact on the career development of young women lawyers. Sponsorship, understood as the public and strategic endorsement of a female or male leader in positions of power, is also key to opening up decision-making spaces.

2. Incorporate leadership skills from training
Firms should include leadership training, negotiation skills, effective communication and management of diverse teams. 

3. Transform the organizational culture
The implementation of flexible work policies, evaluation by results, equal parental leave and transparent promotion systems can contribute significantly to eliminating the structural barriers that women face in the legal profession.

4. Combat gender bias
Training leaders and teams to recognize unconscious biases allows them to identify patterns that perpetuate inequality, from the assignment of high-profile cases to the criteria used to evaluate leadership or professional commitment.

5. Foster collaborative networks among women lawyers
Women’s networking, based on professional solidarity and the exchange of experiences, allows women lawyers to share resources, opportunities and learning. This type of networking not only promotes individual growth, but also the collective strengthening of women’s leadership in the legal field.

6. Clear, forceful and equitable firm policies
We must embrace the equity of what is unequal and seek ways to level the playing field in organizations so that women have access to specific positions, and this must be an open commitment by the firm. 

Our case 

In EY’s Indirect Tax practice, we assist companies in international trade and customs matters in the Central American region, a field traditionally dominated by men. Against this backdrop, we have been committed to the development of female talent, working closely with young professionals and providing them with the necessary tools to exercise effective leadership - both in project management and team leadership.
Today, we are proud to have a leadership made up of 100% high-performing women, including three young managers (equivalent to associate lawyers), leading a team of 8 professionals, who in turn have outstanding potential to become future directors or partners in the area.

Our clients, many of them also with female-led teams, have reported successful results and recognize the value this diversity brings to their professional interactions.

Credit Suisse’s study (2021) supports this experience: companies with more than 20% diversity have achieved higher EBITDA margins by 1.6 percentage points on average since 2010, compared to those with less than 15%. Likewise, companies with greater diversity in their leadership show better stock price returns.

These findings reinforce our conviction that diversity is not only fair, but also strategic.

The real challenge is not in fitting women into traditional leadership models, but in redefining those models to be more inclusive, humane and representative of the wealth of talent that today makes up the legal profession.

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