‘Personally, I am not a great fan of quotas, but I like the results they bring. We need quotas to break the glass ceiling before returning to normal.’ So said EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding recently, introducing a consultation on whether to bring in quotas for women in company boardrooms.

She appears to be right about results: research shows a gender-balanced corporate board correlates with higher share-price growth, increased profitability and a mature attitude to risk. So it was surprising to see women lawyers gathered for last week’s International Women in Law Summit roundly reject using quotas as a tool to help more of them into senior legal positions.

Quotas are ‘patronising’, it was averred - though it was not immediately evident why the preferred ‘diversity targets’ are less so. One wonders whether the profile of the audience skewed the result: the room was full of distinguished women who have reached the top, or are well on course to get there.

The fact is, change just isn’t happening quickly enough. Is it not time for law firms to be bold and mandate change, rather than hope it somehow happens by osmosis? Or will the profession still be having this discussion in 10 years’ time?