The possibility of a calm and thoughtful practice

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For a long time, women’s success in law has been defined by how well they thrive in traditional law firms. More and more, however, women are rejecting that way of doing things and choosing to chart their own course at their own firms. 

A 2026 report from the International Bar Association shows that although women comprise 53 percent of the legal profession in Canada, they make up less than 35 percent of partnerships in traditional firms. 

A 2022 CBA Women Lawyers Forum (WLF) study identified a lack of transparency around compensation, inequitable file allocation, and a disproportionate burden of non-billable work for women lawyers, all of which contribute to a clear pay gap in the profession. 

In 2025, a member of the forum authored an article that explored why women are leaving traditional big law firms at nearly twice the rate of men, says Grace Cleveland, chair of the WLF and a partner at Cleveland Doan LLP in British Columbia. 

“Mostly that's due to severe burnout, rigid billable hour cultures, and the motherhood penalty.”

That’s why the forum’s recent conference focused on the rise of women-led law firms.

“We wanted to talk about what women lawyers are doing in response to these problems and how they are building their own tables,” Cleveland says.

Aneka Jiwaji co-founded Jawaji Law in Vancouver late last year. 

“The things that I was thinking about when we started this practice were the billable expectations on women that are leading to severe burnout — the disproportionate amount of billable work that women are told to take on with the illusion that it's going to lead to partnership, which seems to never happen,” she says. 

Her firm focuses on commercial securities litigation, tax, intellectual property, and other male-dominated areas of law. Jiwaji says they intentionally steer away from the culture of doling out big bonuses for big hours worked. 

“I think we've been sort of sold that the practice of those areas has to look a certain way. It has to be the big hours and the sort of traditional way that we've always practiced law,” she says.

But when she really stopped to think about what she likes about being in law, a lot of those law firm tropes fell by the wayside. 

“I like going to court. I like doing sophisticated work. I like doing a sustainable amount of it, and I like doing it with people that I enjoy. Those people happen to be women,” she explains. 

“We are an all-women team. We have a cap on billable hours. And when I say a cap, I mean it's a hard cap. We expect everybody to do the maximum of 1600 hours [per month], and that is a true maximum.”

Erin Cowling founded Flex Legal Network in Toronto in 2015 to connect freelance lawyers with firms needing their expertise. Due to nationwide demand, it grew quickly from three freelance lawyers to more than 80. And while she could have scaled even larger and was encouraged to do so by some male peers, she made a conscious decision not to. 

“I'm purposely keeping it where it is because I love my lifestyle,” Cowling says.

“Maybe I'm sacrificing some cash on the table … but it does not make up for the fact that I control my time, I have my weekends off, I have my evenings off, and I'm growing something that's helping people across Canada.”

Jiwaji also hears from people who think she should scale up to a larger firm, but her goal is to help keep more women in commercial and securities litigation. 

“Not everything is about making money. That again is a patriarchal way of thinking, that everything has to be a capitalistic endeavour. We can still make money and do something good, and bigger is not always better,” she says.

While she still works long hours, she has had more control over the types of clients she takes on since co-founding her firm. 

“I don't work for assholes,” Jiwaji says. 

“When people say we have a no asshole policy in law, we actually have that.”

Freelancers like Cowling work for multiple law firms instead of just one, so they’re not full-time employees. 

“We pick up work when we want to pick up work, and we say no when we don't want to do the work.”

When she started her own solo practice, the major trade-off was not getting a paycheque every two weeks. She says you’re basically an entrepreneur, running your own business and handling your own invoicing. You can work at 10 p.m. or 10 a.m., and on whatever days you choose. 

“When I started freelancing, I decided I'm not taking calls after 6 p.m. or looking at my email. I just remember I used to sleep with my phone under my pillow. So if a client called me at 11 p.m. on a Saturday, I would answer. And I thought, I am not going back to that.”

She sometimes feels guilty talking about this, as there’s an image of entrepreneurs working all the time and not taking vacations as they scale their businesses. Cowling says she wonders at times whether, if that’s not her, she's a “successful” entrepreneur.

Cleveland says the idea that it’s possible to work in a law office that feels calm and thoughtful is starting to percolate among new lawyers entering the field. That said, sometimes it’s a case of needing to see it to believe it. For that reason, the recent WLF conference featured women from across the country who have built and led these firms. 

“We wanted to show that there isn't just one way to do this. Here are all these women who are doing it, and you can do it too,” she says.

“We're sort of hoping that this isn't just a conversation, but that this becomes a movement. The rise of women-led law firms is not just to benefit women. I think it has the potential to make the profession better for all.”

Tune in to the full episode to hear more about the benefits of women running their own firms and what our panel thinks will change in the next 10 years about how lawyers work.