Hamilton-Baily: It’s a perception issue
“A structural blind spot, reinforced by long‑held biases and outdated assumptions” is preventing lawyers from becoming non-executive directors (NEDs), a report has argued.
When lawyers do get onto boards, they could offer “judgement under pressure, governance fluency, pattern recognition, stakeholder management, and the confidence to ask the difficult questions that cut through groupthink”.
Alex Hamilton-Baily, co-author of the report and head of legal and professional services at recruitment consultancy Odgers, said on LinkedIn that despite “operating at the centre of strategy, risk, regulation, reputation, cyber response and corporate transformation, former lawyers occupy fewer than 2% of board seats”.
The number of former lawyers serving as NEDs in FTSE 100 companies was “markedly small” at “around half a dozen across over 1,000 board seats”. Although the “pack widens” in the FTSE 250, it remained “far underweight”.
Mr Hamilton-Baily said: “We all know the US is different.” Having interviewed around 30 former lawyer NEDs in the UK for the report, he commented: “The headline finding was actually quite simple; this isn’t (mostly) a capability issue, it’s a perception issue.”
Mr Hamilton-Baily and Mark Freebairn, head of NED at Odgers, said in the report, Why Aren’t More Lawyers NEDs? [1], that lawyers were “a rarity” on UK listed-company boards despite them facing “growing complexity and risk” on issues such as cyber, data/AI, regulation, geopolitics and litigation.
The gap was “driven less by capability and more by entrenched perceptions: headhunter and chair ‘gatekeeping’, a tendency to pigeonhole lawyers as technical and risk‑averse, and a preference for candidates with obvious P&L [profit and loss] credentials or prior NED experience”.
The report went on: “That lawyers are sidelined from boards is, on the face of it, paradoxical. Corporate Britain is drowning in risk: cyber‑attacks, disrupted supply chains, regulation/deregulation, geopolitical shocks, tariffs, activist investors, activist campaigners, climate reporting, and multi‑jurisdictional litigation to name a few. Lawyers may have played a central role in protecting a business from many of these things.”
In this context, legal training ought to be a strategic advantage. “Lawyers specialise in pattern recognition, seeing the unseen, and in synthesising vast quantities of material quickly.
“They have lived through crises, from ransomware attacks to regulatory meltdowns, and many have been the last person in the room before a CEO signs a consequential corporate transaction.”
Headhunters, “acting as the market’s gatekeepers to large listed company boards”, could fall into “the trap of sector orthodoxy” or fail to challenge a clients’ misperceptions.
“When job specifications demand prior NED experience, which most lawyers do not have, candidates face a circular trap: one cannot get a board role without a board role.”
The report said breadth of experience was crucial for lawyers wishing to become NEDs, and they must have run part of a business or an international practice, or acted as senior/managing partner, general counsel or company secretary.
They might also have taken on HR, risk, sustainability or operational portfolios, worked in multiple sectors, completed governance training or “built trustee, charity or government board experience early”.
The report added: “Boardrooms have created a structural blind spot, reinforced by long‑held biases and outdated assumptions that lawyers are all about the technicals, not experienced professionals who possess a unique set of capabilities and experiences suited to the boardroom.
“Yet the solution is within reach. Lawyers must broaden their experience and reframe their identity. Headhunters must challenge their own filters. Chairs must be willing to ‘take a punt’, as they do on so many others. And companies must invest earlier in preparing legal leaders for board life.”