It was also “a recognition that life was different now”, he said, with men increasingly wanting to take more active parenting roles.

Valeska Bloch, an Allens partner who helped develop the policy, said the lack of distinction would create cultural change around perceptions of working as a parent.

“It makes a huge difference to the role-modelling for younger lawyers coming through and engenders really good work practices," she said.

“A lot of people opt out [of long leave periods] because they have a perception, rightly or wrongly, that it will impact their career … this could change that.”

The firm is also doing away with billable targets for lawyers returning from mid- to long-term parental leave for up to eight weeks.

While variations on this had been an unofficial policy for some time, Ms Bloch hoped its formalisation would reassure returning parents they could take time to ease back into work.

The firm is still working through an equivalent policy for partners, who often have targets associated with work brought into the firm rather than just billed hours.


It will also pay superannuation on any unpaid parental leave taken for up to 34 weeks.

The firm has the highest portion of female partners of the big six law firms at 33.1 per cent, but Mr Spurio and Ms Bloch were clear the push for a better policy came from men as well as women.

Ms Bloch said the package was a more holistic approach to improving parental leave than firms historically took, with most adopting a piecemeal approach meaning some areas improve but others lag.

Promoting parents

Ms Bloch is about to start her second parental leave and said her first stint showed her that, rather than limiting her career as many feared, the time off made her a better lawyer.

“Taking the time out from everyday business so you can work out what’s important and think strategically is really helpful,” she said.

“It lets you read more and listen to podcasts while you’re pushing the pram and draw links with your work and think more broadly about what you want to do.”

Further cementing her view that taking almost a year of parental leave did not stymie her career, Ms Bloch was made a partner of Allens within months of her son’s birth.

She is not the first lawyer to be promoted to the partnership while on parental leave. Minter Ellison’s Louella Stone, DLA Piper’s Astrid Beemster and Arnold Bloch Leibler’s Christine Fleer all made partner in the same situation.