In a better world, Adrian Barlow would be here to talk about his accomplishments as a lawyer. The recognition would not be undeserved: the son of a pathologist, raised in Huddersfield, Barlow read law at Cambridge before rising through the ranks of Simpson Curtis — later Pinsent Masons — to become a partner at only 31. Now, at 44, he is global head of Pinsent Masons property group, responsible for 150 fee-earners, £20 million in revenue and clients such as BT and Royal Mail. Instead of discussing his day job, however, we are here to talk about his sexuality.

Barlow is openly gay, a rare thing among partners at the UK’s top 100 law firms. He came out to his line manager as a newly qualified solicitor in the late 1990s but was warned that he would be putting his career at risk. It wasn't until 1994, on the verge of making partner and after a period in which he became so "disconnected" that he considered quitting to join a niche gay firm, that he told the rest of his colleagues. A fellow gay solicitor had advised him not to "ghettoise" himself, he recalls. "They said become a great lawyer where you are. Change it from within."

Ever since, Barlow has been doing that, becoming one of the profession's most eloquent champions of its need to become more diverse and inclusive. He and a determined group of gay partners and open-minded colleagues have been instrumental in making Pinsent Masons among the market leaders on diversity issues. Barlow says the firm has been generally supportive of his sexuality. "The firm has never, ever imposed a glass ceiling on me," he says.

But a glance at the profession at large would suggest he is an exception. Stonewall’s Workplace Equality Index, which ranks the top 100 UK employers by virtue of their attitude toward gay and lesbian staff, includes numerous banks, blue chip companies and even the Royal Navy — but not a single law firm.

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If we do not get this right we may harm our business

Tom Cassels, Baker & McKenzie

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It's not just gays and lesbians who are victims of a "glass ceiling". A recent survey in Legal Business, a trade magazine, revealed that only 20 per cent of the 353 lawyers promoted to partnership in 2006 were women, despite the fact that they make up more than half of those now entering the profession. In total, 23 per cent of partners in private practice are female, according to the Law Society, with the average in the "magic circle" dropping to around 15 per cent.

The picture is even worse if you're black or Asian. According to the Black Solicitor’s Network, an average of only three per cent of partners and eight per cent of associates at the top 100 firms are from ethnic minorities. Even the most ethnically diverse firms, Fladgate Fielder and Taylor Wessing, are still 92 per cent white.

This is despite City firms investing thousands of pounds over the past year to introduce the sort of diversity initiatives their clients have had in place for years: support networks; links with local schools to mentor underprivileged children who would otherwise not have access to careers in the law; recruiting through minority media; diversity training; flexible working hours.

In 2006, Freshfields became the first law firm to publish an account of its corporate social responsibility activities, including diversity statistics, pro bono work and its impact on the environment.

Earlier this year, Guy Beringer, senior partner at Allen & Overy, published a series of essays criticising the profession for its obsession with profits. He called for City firms to nurture a caring, welcoming environment and warned that they would miss out on the best talent if they don't. That was followed by Allen & Overy's first "diversity week", in February, during which the staff cafeteria served a range of exotic world foods; Gabby Logan spoke about the loneliness of life as a female sports broadcaster; and Simon Callow lectured on being a gay actor.

The same week, Herbert Smith unveiled its first support network for female employees. The first firm to hire a full-time dedicated diversity officer — Carolyn Lee, who previously held a similar position at Deutsche Bank — Herbert Smith has now put all its partners through diversity "workshops". “Banks have been taking this seriously for about eight years,” Lee says. “The legal sector has been slower to catch up. That’s partly due to the banks being much more international.”

Law firms are starting to realise that promoting diversity is not just good public relations – it also makes good business sense. Competition for talent is now so fierce that even a newly-qualified solicitor can earn up to £96,000 a year. At the same time, the demographics of the legal profession have undergone a seismic shift. According to Law Society figures, 61.8 per cent of trainee solicitors registered in 2005-06 were women. Almost a third of students now entering the profession are ethnic minorities. If the big firms fail to make themselves attractive to the widest pool of potential employees, they could struggle to compete.

“It’s purely a numbers game,” says Michael Webster, a spokesman for the Black Solicitor’s Network. “If you’re restricting yourself to the 20 per cent of the pool that is white and male, you’re preventing yourself from attracting the best possible talent. You can only do that if you widen the net, and that will require law firms adopting a cultural shift.”

Barlow is less diplomatic. "It’s about time they just grew up and realised that the issue goes straight to the bottom line," he says. Not only is an inclusive workplace necessary for attracting a wide pool of talented graduates, he argues, it is even more important in retaining them. Merely throwing more money at people has not made it easier. As Barlow knows from personal experience, it is difficult to perform at your most productive if you feel out of place.

Look down the partner profiles at any City firm and the faces are still predominantly white and male. That is no longer sustainable in a globalised, multicultural, increasingly corporate environment. If the next generation of lawyers don’t start to see similar faces among the leadership ranks, if they don't see that the glass ceiling has been lifted, they will quickly move on.

That over half of junior lawyers are now women is a particular problem. Many want to take a break in their late 20s or early 30s to start a family, but it is still regarded as "career suicide" to ask for flexible or part-time working arrangements to help juggle a family with high-level work. Managers are not generally sympathetic. Instead, some women lawyers decide that the relentless long hours, weekends spent in far-away airport terminals and being woken at two o'clock in the morning by clients is simply not as important once they've had children. "The stark reality is that if we don't get this right we may hurt our business," says Tom Cassels, a partner at Baker & McKenzie.

This seems so obvious it should hardly need pointing out, yet, as Barlow says, many firms are having to be dragged “kicking and screaming” to change.

Indeed, the biggest push for diversity has come from their clients. The likes of Barclays, JP Morgan and National Grid have demanded that their external legal advisers declare their diversity statistics. Implicit is the threat that they may be dropped if they fail to measure up.

Helen Mahy, company secretary and general counsel at National Grid and chair of the influential GC100, a grouping of the UK’s top general counsel, says that diversity will be among the key criteria for appointing law firms during National Grid's next panel review, along with the "harder" criteria of price, depth of knowledge and relevant sector experience.

Advisers are unlikely to be fired solely on the basis of failing on diversity, Mahy says, but it could be the difference in choosing between similar firms. “If all things were equal between firms A, B and C, I think we’d go for the one that best matched our philosophy,” she says.

“They know this is a concern for us,” Mahy continues. “And at the end of the day law firms are there to service their clients.”

Jonathan McCoy, the UK legal director at Vodafone — who has introduced flexible working for his own employees — says firms assume an expectation on the part of clients that often doesn't exist. “They need to evolve and realise there is not one way to practice law,” he says.

McCoy and his team have had lengthy discussions on diversity, though they have stopped short of publicly requiring set standards of their external advisers.

McCoy says he is uncomfortable with the idea of Vodafone's external advisers working long hours just because of a law firm culture and would be receptive if any came to him with a proposal to introduce flexible or part-time working.

“As a client we would welcome that,” he says. “It would be seen as a good thing. We would be happy to discuss how both we and the firm could handle it.”

All it requires, he says, is better communication and planning. But while that may work with certain areas of law, much transactional corporate work leaves little room for flexibility. Due diligence during a billion-pound takeover often means working through the night, and no lawyer would even think of leaving the office to tend to family commitments. “It wouldn’t go down very well," Mahy admits.

On the other hand, these problems are not insurmountable, and have been successfully grappled with by other industries. “It's a conundrum,” Mahy says, “but I do think it can be solvable.”

For Barlow’s part, while he is frustrated that it has taken so long to address the problem, he is confident that things are changing. The most encouraging sign, he says, is that colleagues who have not directly experienced discrimination are now fighting for equal rights for their colleagues simply because they see it as the right thing to do. "When the torch is being carried by non-gay colleagues, that’s when I know we are winning," he says.

Ultimately, he hopes that he will not have to discuss his sexuality at all – that it will simply cease to be an issue. "There will always be pockets of homophobia," he says. "You can’t legislate for that. But we will get to the point where people won’t give a damn, because it just won't be a consideration." Surely if the armed forces can get to that point, the legal profession can.

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