For more than 100 years, International Women's Day has celebrated the achievements of women and pushed for gender parity. But this year, we've chosen to focus our main feature on the role that men need to play in actually achieving this within the legal profession.

Some may question why we are taking this approach, when men already have ample opportunity to get their voice heard within the profession. The answer to this is quite simple – as men hold the vast majority of leadership roles within law firms, the onus has got to be on them to drive real change.

However, as the revelations of recent months have highlighted, men have clearly been a large part of the problem when it comes to the progress of women in law – as in other industries. Witness the sexual assault scandal at Baker McKenzie, or our survey which found that some two thirds of female lawyers have experienced sexual harassment while working within law firms.

But now it's time for men to be part of the solution, and more and more firms are waking up to this fact – as acknowledged by many of those spoken to for today's feature.

Yes, law absolutely needs more female role models at partnership, and especially leadership, level. A lot more. The fact the magic circle firms look no closer to having a female managing or senior partner between them now than they did when I joined Legal Week 12 years ago remains a depressing reality. Even more depressing is Ashurst partner Simon Beddow's assertion that little has changed in his 29 years in the profession.

But while the number of female role models remains far smaller than it should be, male partners have a duty to help rectify the problem.

During the coming days, we will be running a series of Q&A interviews between mentors and mentees looking at just that. From partners at Allen & Overy to DLA Piper, growing numbers of male partners are attempting to understand what it is really like to walk in the shoes of a more junior female lawyer.

It's likely that each change that results from these efforts will not sound radical. Changing work allocation so that it isn't biased, rethinking networking opportunities and ensuring access to coaching and mentoring, for example, do not sound the most groundbreaking ideas in the world.

But, little by little, they will help. On the back of movements like #MeToo, Time's Up and, to a lesser extent, the attention brought through the new gender pay gap reporting requirements, there has never been as good a time as now to press for progress.

There's still a long way to go before law achieves anything close to gender parity, but at least firms are now moving on from empty platitudes to more tangible initiatives. And the fact that some clients are starting to hold them to account if they don't deal with the disparity will clearly help.

So let's hope we're not still having this debate in another 12 years, and that at some point soon the patronage of men will no longer be necessary for women to reach the heights they deserve.