Addleshaw Goddard has recently celebrated its fifth year of Flourish, AG's Female Lawyer Development Programme. 42 female lawyers, comprising clients and AG delegates, came together at the firm's Milton Gate offices for two days of training on career development and the key skills required to progress to senior levels.

The first pilot, in 2012, was attended by 29 women. Move forward 5 years and we have an alumni of nearly 200 women.

Flourish aims to create a support network and increase the confidence and aspiration of female lawyers to progress to more senior levels. It is tailored to the areas where female lawyers have asked for some additional development, with a focus on some of the cultural and practical issues that might have an impact on women’s career progression.

The programme continues to be an overwhelming success and has gone a long way to achieving its business aims - since the programme launched, 37% of newly promoted partners have been female (up from 28% in the three years prior to that) and currently 25% of partners firm wide are female (up from 20%).

Justine Delroy, tax partner and programme sponsor, commented: "We are immensely proud of what we have achieved with Flourish and feedback this year was overwhelmingly positive. We have set a new target of 30% firm wide female partners by 2019 and we will continue to champion the investment in, and development of, our talented female lawyers."

Since its inauguration, the firm continues to take a fresh approach to improving the retention and the number of women at senior levels, for the firm and for clients. For more information about Flourish, as well as all the firm's initiatives on development and retention of women, please visit our Gender webpage.