Today is International Women’s Day, a day for celebrating women's achievements while calling out inequality. International Women’s Day is observed by the United Nations and its missions include celebrating women’s achievements, forging a gender equal world and accelerating equality.
As head of the family department, an equity partner, owner and board member here at Stephensons, I am incredibly proud to be part of a successful and forward thinking firm which has, for over 40 years, had women helping to shape its future.
In particular, I want to take this opportunity to celebrate some of the amazing women in our family law department at Stephensons.
Three of the four partners within the team are women and five out of the six senior management team are female lawyers. One of them, Jackie Price celebrates 20 years qualification as a solicitor this week. Jackie joined the firm at the age of 16 as an administrative assistant and was able to progress to secretary, paralegal, trainee solicitor, solicitor, associate solicitor, and in 2021 to partner which is an incredible achievement.
Emma Roberts has recently been promoted as the new head of the divorce and finances team within the department.
We champion accessibility to the profession, promoting various routes of progression, fostering a culture which allows working parents to thrive where part time, flexible and remote working arrangements are promoted. We have a number of solicitor apprentices and Claire Pilling has recently qualified as a CILEX Fellow and is now a Chartered Legal Executive, an alternative route to qualification which has been championed by Stephensons for many years.
Our family team is one of the largest and well respected in the North West as well as having the most accreditations of any firm in the region; we have nine Children Panel accredited solicitors and six Resolution accredited members and Jackie and Victoria have dual Resolution and Children Panel accreditation, which is rare and the specialisms in which we are accredited include domestic abuse.
Most recently Amy Jones, successfully achieved her Children Panel reaccreditation.
As a team we are ranked Tier 1 in the Legal 500 and are known for our excellence in client care. We represent a very wide variety of family clients and strive hard to protect those clients who have suffered from domestic abuse.
This International Women’s Day, I couldn’t overlook the opportunity to celebrate the fantastic women in the family team.
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