Fostering the advancement of women in the Irish legal profession is a dead issue at the moment, but not because there’s no progress left to be made, participants at a CLE seminar heard Tuesday morning.

The economic downturn has hit the profession so hard that the emphasis is on survival, not lawyer retention or women’s development issues, said Dublin solicitor Michelle Ni Longain. In fact, Ireland’s Law Society has hired an external career adviser to help lawyers move out of the profession. And the issues that are preoccupying law firms concern layoffs, pay cuts and whether to cull salaried partners, not work-life balance and maternity leave, she said.

Meanwhile, in Canada, research confirms that women continue to leave the profession or move outside private practice due to dissatisfaction with working conditions, said Beth Bilson (see her conference paper here), a law professor at University of Saskatchewan.

But legal organizations and women’s groups continue to work on strategies to address work-life balance issues through the development of flexible working strategies and model policies for law firms. Demographic shifts in the profession will bring about some change, she said, but conscious attention to the issue is still required. The panelists were addressing a seminar called: Trans-Atlantic Plight: Challenges of Women in the Legal Profession and Strategies for Change.