“Jackets on Chairs!”
A snapshot of life working for a city law firm: 1994 to 2024 – how things have changed!
Jacqueline Cook
10/31/20246 min read
For those of who worked in the city of London, or any of the main commercial cities in the early 1990s, the sight of a gent’s suit jacket hanging on the back of its owner’s desk chair sent a clear message to all who came into his office to speak to the owner, or who called his PA to arrange a meeting or a call.
“I am in the office. I am working. I am important! I am not at my desk because I have important work to do around the office”.
Of course, this was in the days when business attire meant a two- or three- piece navy, grey or pinstriped suit for a gent. Women’s business dress almost matched that of the gent but with a skirt rather than trouser and very occasionally in a colour. That was my introduction to life working in the Banking Practice at a large magic circle law firm in Summer 1994.
To put the dress code and visual message into context, we have to recall days before mobile phones, computers, the internet, home working and... diversity to any extent. Working life was hectic and office- based with little or no technology to assist with everyday tasks of producing documents, holding meetings, keeping records and doing research. So, consequently days were long and a 12-14 hour day in the office, and ‘all-nighters’ were not unheard of. This was a male dominated world, even then. I had many junior unmarried women and women without families as colleagues but many male colleagues in senior positions with families and often with a spouse who was not in the workplace at that time.
Fast forward to Spring 2024, at the ITFA Emerging Leaders’ Diversity and Inclusion Panel: Industry Network Launch of the Trade Finance Cross Institutional Diversity & Inclusion network, in person with a panel with only two men, one a Scot, and four women, all with successful careers in the city of London and, by my guess, all under 40, with different backgrounds and family circumstances! I was encouraged that 30 years after I started work in the city of London, such a forum now exists. This is a forum where young professionals can talk about issues such as parenting, diversity, being a woman in the workplace and respect for co-workers no matter their gender, sexual orientation, race or marital status or background. While issues were being raised that evening about how things could be improved, I was transported back to 1994 and thought, if only we had had a view of the future and what could be done.
Yes, 1994, meant long hours in the office, not may women at all were partners, and it was almost seen as a weakness to admit to having a family, or indeed any kind of interest or social life outside the office, even at weekends, unless work related. Yet, the façade of the ‘hard business person’ the ‘lunch is for wimps’ mentality meant colleagues hardly ever showed their true feelings at work unless in relation to work.
But even then, things were already changing... there were different regional accents (for example, mine from the West of Scotland), and international languages heard around the office, not everyone was an Oxbridge graduate, but everyone had attended a solid or redbrick university, as the John Major reforms had not yet reclassified colleges as universities. Technology was slowly starting to reach some innovative law firms with rudimentary document production and the red LexisNexis research terminals to look up cases and legislation appearing in banks and law firms.
Has the workplace of today embraced any aspect of diversity and inclusion and how did that come about?
My own experience of returning from 8 months’ maternity leave, (a very generous package at the time, with a few days only for ‘dad’ to see the baby,) was quite an eye opener. It was all about building up the courage to ‘ask’ for what I wanted and then delivering. Before there was (i) a right to request flexible working as a working parent, (ii) one year maternity or shared paternity leave and (iii) hybrid working was the norm as it is in 2024, I went in person to present my ‘plan A’ to a veteran gent in my law firm: my proposal on how I would work on return from maternity leave. My proposal – 3 days in the office and two days working remotely.
Today, it sounds obvious and trite, but then it was a revolution. It involved a lot of bravery on the side of the ‘boss’ and me. He took a chance...he said, “Let’s try it” and in 2000 I purchased a home computer, with key board and the office provided a dial-up modem with that familiar whine when switched on. A mobile ‘brick’ of a phone appeared and we were on the way to flexi- working. I was still expected to work 8-10 hours a day but I was given the privilege of leaving the office at 5pm, to pick up our child from nursery, bath, feed and put her to bed, and then some evenings pick up some work, whether research, answering queries or drafting. It was indeed a privilege and it was seen as that for me as the mother. It was not possible or even contemplated that ‘dad’ could leave the office early and undertake such parental duties. But even by 2004, being able to take a break at 3pm to pick up a child from school and then carry on later from home was not possible without taking a half day or reduced salary, so that was a privilege too far!
So, a decent family man, took a chance and opened up the possibility for our family to benefit from hybrid working from the year 2000. But it took courage, for me as ‘mum’ to ask face-to-face, not by email, and with no right enshrined in law and no guarantee that the firm had to even consider the request, let alone agree. That day, surprisingly, I did not even have to move to plan B! Plan A was tentatively accepted and I worked very hard to meet the expectations of the business and the hours demanded of me. So, the trust placed in me meant I repaid their risk-taking with hard work and commitment.
So, have things improved since 1994?
Indeed, in my view they really have changed. Rights for both parents to request flexible working are enshrined in law; both parents can share parental leave; it is acceptable for dads as well as mums to drop children at school or nursery or take a short break in the day to pick them up from school. The workplace and society are much more open to diversity in the family make-up and inclusion in the types of people, ethnicity, age and disabilities which make up an office workforce nowadays. The women, like me, working women of the mid/late-nineties, who approached their firms, banks etc and asked for change are the quiet trailblazers, they showed that work could be done in a different way so that families could flourish and parents could work, which, in my view, helped enshrine such rights in law for the workforce of today.
Looking forward
So, having just been appointed to a new role, I experience an office with hybrid working as the norm, excellent IT for office and home, a fully stocked kitchen, access to gym and cycle-to-work scheme, parental leave, adoption leave, nursery vouchers and people happy to admit they are part of families. No ‘jackets on chairs’ now, as no-one, whether senior or junior, whether the CEO or managing partner, has an assigned chair or desk and not many are in the city suits of old. So the message has changed,
“...I am working, it does not really matter where I am physically, you can contact me and we can work together!”
What next?
So, I applaud the ITFA Emerging Leaders’ Diversity network and I encourage you, that if you think things could and should be improved, then say so, but do it with the business and clients in mind too. Look at it from all sides, Plan A to Plan D with alternatives that might work.
Have the courage to approach management with a clear, considered proposal, remembering they are people too with friends and families and they are trying to run a successful business in quite a tricky economic and regulatory environment.
Keep the lines of communication open – you just never know what you, actually, what we, might be able to achieve together.
Thanks to Kate Gates at DNB and Queenie Taylor-Wong at MERGE who encouraged me to write this article after the ITFA Emerging Leaders’ Diversity network event.
Jacqueline Cook
29 October 2024
The views expressed are the author’s own views. Jacqueline Cook is a Senior Finance Knowledge Lawyer at Mills & Reeve LLP. She worked in Edinburgh from 1990 to 1994 and in the city of London from 1994, with a few years in Dubai at an international law firm. She is married to Simon Cook, a trade finance lawyer and lives in East Sussex. They have two daughters both now in their early 20s and working in the arts.
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