Q&A with the Women of Rix & Kay – Kathryn Paisley
- Making law easy for you -
Rix & Kay proudly celebrates International Women’s Day (8 March 2025). International Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrated annually on 8 March as a global movement toward a gender-equal world, free from bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. Sponsored by the UN since 1975, IWD highlights the need for meaningful action to drive progress
For 2025, the theme of International Women’s Day is #AccelerateAction, which calls for urgent and decisive steps to achieve gender equality. At the current rate of progress, full gender parity won’t be reached until 2158—a staggering five generations from now—according to the World Economic Forum. This stark reality underscores the importance of removing systemic barriers and biases that women continue to face, both in personal and professional spheres.
To gain insight into gender equality in the legal industry, we spoke with Kathryn Paisley, a Partner at Rix & Kay. She shares her thoughts on International Women’s Day, her experiences as a woman in law, and the key changes needed to drive progress in the profession.
Q&A with Kathryn Paisley: Breaking Barriers in Law
Kathryn leads our Corporate and Commercial team, is part of the film’s strategic board, and is an equity partner. Aspiring to be a lawyer from a young age, Kathryn joined Rix & Kay after a career break to raise her family. She has been with the firm for just under 10 years. She invests significant time and energy into ensuring that she makes difficult corporate legal matters as easy as she can for her clients, many of whom return to her on numerous occasions for their corporate legal needs.
I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer. Defining moments for me include being selected for the overseas scholarship scheme at CMS as a precursor to my training contract, being seconded to the firm’s German partner firm in Stuttgart, my first completion meeting as a qualified solicitor, my career break to raise my family, returning to the law (and finding I could still do it!), becoming a partner and an equity partner – and so many moments in between where I feel I have really made a connection with a colleague or a client and made a difference (if only small) to their world. Each “thank you” I have received from a trainee or junior lawyer I have supervised or client I have assisted has had great impact for me.
What does IWD mean to you?
It’s an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women around the world and to highlight the work that is still to be done. It’s a chance for women to come together in solidarity.
Since you started in the legal field, have you noticed any significant changes in how women are perceived or treated in the workplace? Are there areas that still need significant improvement?
Yes, clearly there are areas that need significant improvement! I’m proud that at Rix & Kay we are fantastically inclusive and fair, but that certainly isn’t the case everywhere. Even in our local business and legal environment we encounter casual (and occasionally overt) sexism all the time. It’s reducing and it is to a certain extent generational, but it’s still there. There’s still too much “banter” that diminishes women in the workplace and society.
The legal sector is still heavily male dominated – How do you think women can succeed in a male-dominated environment?
The legal sector is not male dominated in terms of numbers. It is female dominated but the most senior roles are still largely held by men. In my view women should not try to out-men the men. Be authentic, be real, bring our emotional intelligence to the table, be clear on our parameters, be kind – and be disruptive. We don’t know what the legal sector would look like if it were principally run by women, so let’s not just do things the same way as the men do: let’s see what we can do differently. Let’s challenge the status quo.
#AccelerateAction is the theme for this year’s International Women’s Day. How do you think we can contribute to accelerating gender equality in the workplace?
Be aware. Be alive to difference. Actively make life easier for women in the workplace, whether that is flexibility and hybrid working to allow for school drop offs and emergency child care, whether that is a compassionate and sensible menopause policy, whether that is adjusting the air conditioning in offices that are almost always designed by and for men. Let’s reward female traits like emotional intelligence and compassion as well as the more traditional (male) skill sets that have historically attracted praise. Trust people to get things done even if they are doing things differently from how they used to be done.
What advice would you give to young women entering the legal profession today? How can they prepare for and navigate potential challenges?
Be yourself and don’t take any sh*t. You don’t have to be like the men to be impressive in your field. You have skills and attributes some men can only dream of – so believe in yourself and in what you have to offer.
How do you balance the demands of your career with personal life, and what can law firms do to better support women in achieving this balance?
Rix & Kay has always – whether I was a part-time employee just coming back into the workplace after a career break or now as an equity partner and member of the strategic board – supported me in being who I am. I have never missed an important family event since joining the firm, and the firm has always known it can rely on me to deliver. I work very long hours, including evenings and weekends, and so I am confident in (say) taking time to exercise before work because I know I won’t have time after work. Law firms need to acknowledge that everyone that works in the organisation has a life outside work as well, whatever their gender, and the more understanding and flexibility the firm can demonstrate, the more loyalty and dedication it is likely to be shown in return by the people who work in the organisation. Work has to be a team effort – both sides have to give and take to get the best results.
Do you think there are particular skills or qualities that women bring to the legal industry that should be celebrated more?
As above: emotional intelligence, compassion, kindness, openness, greater capacity to express emotion – these are not exclusively female qualities by any stretch of the imagination but many women do tend to demonstrate them more obviously than some men, and they have historically been underrated as values. Let’s celebrate them – there are so many studies showing that organisations with greater female representation at board level are generally more successful than those that are exclusively male-led. Women and men can see things slightly differently; and it is by embracing and combining diverse attributes and skills that organisations fly.
What can men do to help to achieve equality?
Believe in it. Call out inequality wherever they see it and work actively to eradicate it. Don’t be passive: support women even more vociferously than they would support a man because don’t forget we are playing catch up – we don’t yet have a level playing field.
