A huge pay gap in the earnings of men and women lawyers is confirmed in a new survey to be published this week that shows male solicitors earn on average £19,000 more than their female counterparts.

The survey, carried out by the Law Society, a professional body of nearly 100,000 solicitors in England and Wales, also finds that white solicitors earn on average £10,000 more than their black or ethnic minority colleagues.

The median yearly salary for male solicitors is £60,000 compared with £41,000 for women — a gap of 32 per cent.

Even when taking into account different regions of the country, hours worked, areas of practice, experience or breaks taken, women still earn on average 7.6 per cent less than male solicitors.

The survey — the most comprehensive yet undertaken on pay differentials — has prompted a campaign by the Association of Women Solicitors .

Its chairwoman Fiona Fitzgerald said: “The pay gap demonstrates not only that many women are not equally rewarded for equal work, but, most significantly, they are not making the progress through the profession that they should.”

The legal profession, she added, was becoming more and more female. “Some 60 per cent of last year’s intake of solicitors were women, and 43.4 per cent of practising certificates are now held by women.

“But to take private practice as an example, only 21.8 per cent of women solicitors are partners, compared with 49 per cent of male solicitors.”

Ms Fitzgerald, a partner with Colemans-ctts, a firm in Kingston-upon-Thames, said that one reason for the pay gap was the lack of openess and transparency about salary details.

“There is a secretive culture in many businesses which has caused this situation to arise. Many business owners believe they should pay the salaries they can get away with. Traditionally women were less forthright in pushing the salary issue. This is slowly changing and women entering the profession are demanding change.”

The survey also looked the gap between different ethnic groups.

It found that the median earnings were £50,000 for white solicitors and £40,000 for black and ethnic minority solicitors — a pay gap of 20 per cent.

After adjustments for gender, seniority, firm size, region, hours worked and experience, ethnic minority solicitors still earned on average 17 per cent less than white solicitors.

Sailesh Mehta, chairman of the Society of Asian Lawyers, said: “The whole profession should be concerned to bridge the wide gap in income between black and ethnic minority and white lawyers.”

He gave warning that the gap could worsen as more ethnic minority lawyers felt the squeeze on their income by the Legal Services Commission.

The society had taken a positive step in drawing attention to the inequalities, he added. “We will seek to work with the society and senior partners in larger firms to investigate the real causes of the problem and implement practical solutions to redress the balance.”

Des Hudson, chief executive of the Law Society, said that the findings were of concern. The society would be working both with women and ethnic-minority solicitor groups to see what could be done to eradicate the problem. “Senior partners and human resources professionals in firms must be prepared to work with us to slim the gap.”

Bill Cole, research manager at the Law Society, said the survey was the most thorough yet undertaken and based on the most complete data assembled.

But the research did not fully explain the differences in pay that were found.

The research could be used to control the impact of factors such as “that women solicitors on average have fewer years’ experience than their male counterparts, there may be other factors at play”.

Fiona Woolf, a former president of the Law Society, highlighted the pay gap between men and women solicitors in a lecture on Monday night.

She said: “The gap is a symptom of the difficulties we in the legal sector are facing as we try to implement new ways of working that take account of contemporary realities.”

If law firms were to “win the war” for talent, she added, it needed to find ways to make flexible work successful “not just for women but everyone who is attempting to juggle a career with other commitments”.

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