Watson Farley & Williams’ (“WFW”) London office has been awarded the Women in Leadership Empowerment Forum (WILEF) Gold Standard Certification 2021 in recognition of the firm’s work supporting women in leadership roles.
This is the third year that the firm has been awarded the certification, after becoming the first UK firm to achieve it in 2019. Law firms with 100 or more practising lawyers in the UK are eligible for the certification if they successfully demonstrate that women represent a meaningful percentage of their equity partners, of their governance and compensation committees and of their most highly compensated partners.
To achieve the Gold Standard, firms much meet at least three of the five criteria set by WILEF. We are pleased to say that for the second year running, WFW has exceeded all five of the criteria:
- 20% of equity partners or, alternatively, 33% of lawyers becoming equity partners during the past twelve months are women;
- 20% of the firm’s primary governance committee are women;
- 20% of the firm’s compensation committee or its equivalent are women;
- 15% of the top half of the firm’s equity partners in terms of compensation are women; and
- 7% of women equity partners are black, Asian or from another ethnic minority background.
WFW is proud of the number of women in key leadership roles at the firm, including office, legal and sector heads, as well as business function directors. Many of our women Partners are recognised as leaders in their field and have received high-profile recognition for their work, including recent listings for Lindsey Keeble, Linh Doan and Virginia Murray in the Women in Business Law Awards (WIBLA) 2021 Europe and IFLR1000 Women Leaders.
Managing Partner, Lothar Wegener commented: “We are pleased to have received this recognition for the third time, which is a reflection of the number of women at WFW in senior decision-making roles. Globally, women make up the majority of our fee-earners through to and including Senior Associate, highlighting the firm’s strong pipeline of female talent. There is, of course, always more to do and we continue to take action to further build upon our inclusive culture and improve gender balance in senior roles”.
