That’s how the PR goes anyway.

The magic cirlce firm had its annual partnership conference at the weekend, which according to the Lawyer, kicked off with a session aimed at encouraging more women to become partners and at getting an increased number to move into management roles. So the partners had a chat about female career progression. Groundbreaking.

Law firms have talked about this issue for a long time but there’s always a whiff of more talk than action, particularly in the City. Research shows that regional law firms significantly outperform their City counterparts when it comes to nurturing female talent at the top. Female partner promotions in the regions are in the high 30s in percentage terms compared to teens in the City. What’s more the stats are inconsistent with the idea that firms’ work-type is a dominant factor – i.e. City work is not too tough for women.

There is a certain amount of cynicism amongst our readers (particularly females) about the timing of these initiatives. Good PR is hard to come by at the moment and feeding concocted heartwarmers out to the press is easy. Acheiving results on the other hand is clearly more difficult.

To be fair, A&O’s scheme appears fairly transparent (whether it works or not is a different story) and CC’s, managing partner David Childs has already been vocal about this issue, recently admitting that the current state of affairs was “not good enough”. The proof of the pudding is in the eating however, so we’ll see if things improve over time or if the issue drops down the list of priorities once the good times roll again. Cynics place your bets.