When Victoria Pegrum had her son five years ago, flexible working wasn’t part of the legal profession’s vocabulary. Until recently a single mother, she managed to arrange a four-day week but often felt sidelined.

“Back then working reduced hours was very new in the legal profession. Often you were pushed into support-lawyer roles, but I felt pathetically grateful to be allowed to work four days,” she said.

Just over a year later Pegrum joined the City firm Addleshaw Goddard, where she is now a managing associate. The law firm and Working Families, a charity, last week published a report, Legal Lives – Retaining Talent Through a Balanced Culture, on the need to adapt for a sector that is known for its punishing hours.

“The changes Addleshaw has brought in have really transformed things for me,” said Pegrum. “We are now all set up with Blackberrys and working from home is quite normal.”

Sarah Jackson, chief executive of Working Families, said: “Back in 2001 we looked at working culture across the City and had seen a general macho culture with long hours. The message was that clients expect it; it’s always been this way.

“Since then several other sectors, including financial services and management con-sultancy, have acknowledged the fact that to attract the best talent you have to take their desire for a more balanced life seriously. But in the legal profession it was proving very difficult.”

The slow pace of change has had two serious repercussions: the first is a disproportionately low number of women in senior positions. While the number of women qualified as solicitors has doubled in the past decade to make up 60% of all solicitors, only 23% of partners in law firms are women.

And with opportunities to work reduced hours still rare, many find it difficult to return to work after having children.

“The lack of flexibility in law is often hardest for women,” said Anna Buttimore at Law Care, a helpline. “We have so many calls from women who feel they are not seen to be showing commitment if they don’t work long hours, but they have guilt coming from both sides because they also feel bad for not being there for their children.”

And it’s not only female lawyers who suffer – the other problem incurred by the “all work, no play” culture is burn-out. A Law Care survey published last year found that stress and alcoholism were rife in the legal profession, with three in four calls to the helpline being linked to stress and overwork.

“They are often given impossible targets that are completely unreachable,” said Buttimore. “There is usually a certain number of billable hours they have to reach each month and if they don’t reach their target they will be overlooked for promotion. Work-life balance is pretty nonexistent for a lot of them.”

And if they don’t burn out, they drop out. Many of the clients approaching Jonathan Fagan’s legal recruitment agency Ten Percent are recently qualified but have already had enough. Fagan said: “A lot of people approach us after 12 to 18 months in a big City firm to say they want out. They might be earning £60,000 but when they work out how many hours they are working for that wage they realise it’s the equivalent of earning £25,000 in a nine-to-five job.”

There are signs, though, that change is coming. Thirteen law firms took part in the research for last week’s report. When staff at those 13 firms were asked if it was possible for fee earners there to have any sort of work-life balance, 11 said no, but the fact that at two firms there was already a sense that a home life was compatible with a career in the law gave the researchers hope.

“The great thing about the results was that they were consistent,” said Jackson. “The things that the two firms were doing were exactly what staff at the 11 others were asking for, so we immediately had practical examples of what would work.” Allowing employees to work flexibly and to use technology to work from home were among the most successful methods for delivering a better work-life balance.

Another change that had been well implemented in the two firms was a switch in the methods for measuring performance. “For most people flexible working isn’t about part-time working or being less committed,” said Judith Hardy, HR director of Addleshaw Goddard.

“So, when you are looking at reviewing performance, the focus should be on the quality of work done rather than on the number of hours it took to do it. Our client research as part of this programme showed that the clients don’t care how or where it’s done, they just want the best level of service they can get. They also want continuity, so anything we can do to improve retention is good.”

The business reasons for improving work-life balance are becoming clearer with every new study. “We know from our own research that if you overwork your staff and they feel under constant pressure, they’re going to make mistakes,” said Buttimore. “The most successful lawyers are the ones who are getting flexible hours. And they do the best work for their employers, too.”

Pegrum agreed. “The more this issue is talked about the more I feel I’m accepted, and the better I feel about my work,” she said.

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