Abstract:
Despite the trend that more women graduate from law school and enter the legal profession than men, there remains an underrepresentation of women at partnership level. The aim of the research was to investigate how sponsorship had acted as an enabler to senior female lawyers who had achieved partnership and to ascertain whether a model could be created to implement sponsorship as a structured firm-managed programme. The research investigated what characteristics defined a sponsored relationship, the influence of management support for sponsorship, the unique qualities of a sponsor and the qualities required of a sponsee for the relationship to be successful.
An inductive qualitative study of partners in law firms was undertaken. The data was collected through purposive and snowball sampling methods and 19 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with the interviewees. The interviewees represented female partners in law firms who had advanced through a sponsored relationship or partners who had sponsored female attorneys to partnership. The feedback was analysed using a combination of narrative, content and comparative analysis.
The research compared sponsorship to mentorship, counselling and coaching and distinguished sponsorship as career orientated. The research adapted the model of Simmons (2015) comparing and contrasting these concepts. The research concluded that there are seven characteristics of a sponsored relationship: skills development, relationship of trust, networking, developing competence, work allocation, promotion and developing an independent practice. The research findings provided a framework and a toolkit to develop a firm managed sponsorship programme. The research concluded by adapting McClelland's Theory of Needs to develop a compatibility model for matching powerful sponsors and ambitious sponsees.
