It's an increasingly glaring contradiction that as the profession has often touted its commercial outlook, on one key yardstick its business cred has utterly failed: the dearth of opportunities for partners after they retire from law.

On one level, that's strange. Lawyers are increasingly expected to build commercial and management skills and typically retire from the law in their mid-50s. In theory, bluechip boards, finance houses and prestigious not-for-profits should be well stocked with lawyers, deploying a lifetime of well-honed professional knowledge. But as this week's in depth feature on life after law reminds us, this is very far from the case.

Getting partners into decent non-executive roles is a struggle, and the skills of ex-lawyers are held in low regard in the business world. Lawyers, for their part, frequently struggle to acclimatise to life outside the well-oiled legal institutions that have defined their professional lives and self image. And law firms remain ambivalent, understanding the anxiety afflicting partners approaching retirement, but often unable or unwilling to adjust a business model that makes it hard for older partners to cultivate outside career interests.

Success, when it comes, occurs via professional 'camouflage' – taking on non-legal roles that will catch the eye of potential employers who remain utterly unimpressed with their professional skills. There has been some progress in that a generation of heavyweights have had success over the last decade in establishing portfolio careers after retiring from the profession, but for the average top 50 partner it remains a depressing outlook. Yet I wouldn't go as far as to say that the business world's disdain for lawyers is entirely unwarranted.

This image is certainly an exaggeration of the fence-sitting, risk-avoiding mentality of lawyers, and a handy one that leaves bankers and accountants with a free crack at the plum non-exec jobs. But if the profession is honest, it has collectively failed to match anything like the accountancy trade's success since the 1980s in recasting accountants from technical advisers to business counsel in the wider sense. Indeed, there are aspects of the modern law firm model, such as the cult of specialisation, that have arguably made it harder for lawyers to escape the professional services ghetto.

It's also easy to see how short-term imperatives push law firms to neglect the needs of older partners, especially those nearing retirement from law. But this approach has imposed a cost on the profession. At the least, the lack of lawyers in business is a bloody awful advert for City firms' commercial credentials and increases the risk that the profession may get pushed down the value chain at some point in time.

Meanwhile, firms in the City are accumulating older partners that they can't accommodate under their pay models. Enlightened self-interest would call for little more flexibility and a good deal more support for older partners stepping into the wilderness.