One thing is certain when the thorny issue of accommodating broody female lawyers comes up – UK law firms are not likely to be signing up to the Babies in the Office scheme, Addison Lee-style, any time soon.

Whether it's flexible working or, as in the case of this week's research by Legal Week, maternity packages, it's an issue that City firms are still grappling with. In stark contrast to associate pay, which is disclosed openly by firms, lack of transparency with benefits like maternity pay means there are sizeable variations in the schemes on offer.

And if there's less transparency about maternity pay for staff, getting indications on what firms offer their partners is like extracting blood from the proverbial stone.

But, in fairness, there are some pretty good deals on offer across the UK's largest law firms, with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer – a firm more commonly associated with sporty men and long hours – offering the most generous package, just ahead of Clifford Chance. Linklaters and Simmons & Simmons also have particularly good schemes.

As a very rough rule of thumb, the most prestigious City firms offer the best terms, though given that these firms generally have the lowest proportion of female partners and suffer the worst complaints about excessive hours, there is obviously more to engaging women staff than maternity pay.

Of course, maternity benefits are only one part of what is needed to keep women in law firms. Relatively generous policies in this regard certainly haven't proved enough to stop women lawyers leaving private practice in droves around the time they choose to start a family.

More important is what happens when women return to work. Ultimately, the real importance of maternity benefits is as one of many elements that create an atmosphere in which employers make women and working parents feel they can have a long-term career in an environment that supports them.

That law firms still struggle hugely on this front – despite having reasonably enlightened maternity policies – again illustrates the fundamental and unresolved conflict between the uncompromising demands of the partnership track on one hand and the biological realities and changing world-view of staff who long ago abandoned notions of a job for life.

Law firms won't make big improvements in female retention by pandering to workers who just don't want to make the kind of sacrifices involved in working in City law, but they should be ready to meet their high-performing female staff halfway. On maternity benefits, they have made some laudable ground. The real breakthrough will come by applying such thinking to the heart of their businesses.