Women and law, eh? Same old, same old! Loads enter the profession but most fall off the career track of large City law firms by the time it comes to handing out partnership. By most estimates, more than half of the lawyers entering the profession are women, but a commercial law firm that manages to have a 20% female partnership is reckoned to be doing pretty well – over 40% and your managing partner becomes an automatic pundit on female empowerment.

Many would privately say that it's a problem rendered unsolvable by the conflict of biology and the brutal realities of City life. Well, one firm at least is having a renewed crack at addressing the issue, as we report today. Specifically, Allen & Overy (A&O) has expanded its range of flexible working options with the aim of tackling the conflict between the tournament of partnership and the family aspirations of lawyers in their thirties.

Yes, I'm aware that many City firms have a few part-time partners. But these schemes have in the main been ad hoc and taken up by only a few, even if they are technically available to equity partners.

What A&O is at least trying to do is to address the core problem and make its solution part of the architecture of its partnership – and quite rightly so, because the core problem is blindingly obvious: the time you want to start a family is inconveniently almost exactly the same time that the career typically makes the most onerous demands on your time. This is the case for most jobs, but it is doubly so for City lawyers who also have to handle a long-hours culture and the rigours of positioning themselves to gain partnership or trying to establish themselves as new partners.

A&O's idea is to tailor its scheme around providing flexibility for partners when it's needed most – when a young partner may want to start a family. That is why there is a time limit of eight years. It's not an open-ended signal that earning six or seven figures annually is compatible in the long-term with working part-time. Partnership does obviously take a certain level of commitment.

The firm has also been transparent about how the system would work in practice, including specifying the impact on partners' equity points. And as any lawyer can tell you, the spirit is often more important than the letter with such schemes. That's why senior partner David Morley (pictured) nailing his colours to the mast in publicly supporting this initiative should increase its chances of success.

Obviously there will need to be a significant take-up for the venture for it to gain credibility. For a firm of A&O's size, a few years down the track you would expect there to be 10-20 partners on flexi-time if it is to become a serious option. Success is far from guaranteed, but I'd call it an honourable attempt.

While I'm on the subject, Legal Week is currently researching an extended piece on women in the profession – so by all means let us know if your firm has come up with effective ways of retaining talented female lawyers at a senior level (or junior level, for that matter). The more successful examples that come to the fore – which can hopefully crowd out the PC waffle that dogs this issue – the more women will be pursuing long-term careers in the law.

For more, see A&O moves to retain talent with new flexi-time scheme for partners