Women in Legal Business & The Strategists - Leadership, Equality, and the Future of the Legal Profession

In 1883, the Turin Court of Appeal ruled that “the practice of law by a woman was contrary to the nature of the sex”. Lidia Poët, Italy’s first female lawyer, did not respond with a plea for tolerance. She responded with a lifelong masterclass in strategic resilience, not merely crossing the threshold of the Bar but dismantling the institutional gatekeeping that prevented excellence from reaching the market.

That fight is settled. In 2026, the question is no longer whether women belong in the Italian legal profession. It is how they are reshaping what the profession decides, how it is structured, and what it rewards. The era of symbolic diversity is over. The era of structural power has begun.

This report is not a celebration of gender. It is an audit of impact. They were not asked to perform optimism. They were asked to tell the truth.

The truth, as it emerges across these conversations, is this. Progress is real, but uneven. Women are not merely present at the highest levels of the profession. They are defining agendas, shaping governance, and building systems that will outlast them. And the structural barriers that remain are not abstract. Opaque promotion criteria, the culture of constant availability, a gender pay gap that INPS data places at up to 40% in earnings and 46% in pension outcomes. These are daily realities, not statistics.

The 36 leaders in this report were selected through an editorial process grounded in Leaders League's ongoing coverage of the Italian legal market. The criteria were deliberately plural: ranking recognition in Leaders League's Italy directories, peer reputation, recommendations from in-house counsel, recent promotions and leadership appointments, media presence, and deal volume. No single criterion determined inclusion. The aim was to reflect the profession as it actually operates at its highest levels in 2026, across firm structures, sectors, and career paths, rather than to produce a list of the most decorated names.

The analyses and reflections that follow are drawn from conversations with 36 leaders across the Italian legal and business ecosystem. Their individual contributions, developed in full, are available in the profile articles that accompany this report.

The Counsel — Alessandra Del Bianco (SWOT Legal), Alessia Corsetti (Comoli Ferrari), Anne-Manuelle Gaillet (CastaldiPartners), Clarissa Galli (Pirola Pennuto Zei e Associati), Cristina D’Onorio (Belmond), Elisa Antonietta Blardone (ARCHIMED), Federica Pavesi (Banca AideXa), Flavia Volpi (Cimbali Group), Germana Mentil (Italgas), Ilaria Antonella Belluco (CBA), Jean Paule Castagno (BIP Law & Tax), Jessica Meloni (CEVA Logistics), Maddalena Boffoli (Solving), Mara Fittipaldi (FIVERS), Maria Grazia Longoni (LCA Studio Legale), Maria Pia Carretta (CP-DL), Meritxell Roca Ortega (Pavia e Ansaldo), Monica Colombera (Legance), Nadia Martini (Rödl), Ombretta Faggiano (ESAOTE GROUP), Paola Sangiovanni (Gitti and Partners), Raffaella Quintana (ADVANT Nctm), Sara Citterio (Trussardi), Silvia D’Alberti (Orsingher Ortu), Simona Lavagnini (LGV Avvocati), Simona Musso (Lavazza Group), Stefania Raviele (DL-LAW), Tiziana Lombardo (Haeres Capital), Valeria Cordaro (UPS Italia).

The Strategists — Claire Cardinaletti and Monica Scopelliti (CastaldiPartners), Gaia Francieri (Consulta), Letizia Cattaneo (FIVERS), Mara Virani (Jacobacci Avvocati), Roberta De Matteo (MOPI), Valeria Cavallo (Deloitte Legal Italy).

The Counsel

From Guardian to Architect

The most consistent theme across the legal conversations in this report is a transformation in what the job actually is. The lawyer whose primary function was to say no has given way, for the most forward-thinking professionals, to something different: a person who shapes decisions before they are made rather than reviewing them after the fact.

In highly regulated environments, this means converting compliance requirements into a framework that helps the business move faster, not slower. It means understanding the commercial objective, identifying the real risk, and designing a path that is both compliant and executable. The shift is not merely philosophical. It changes where legal functions sit in the organisation, how they are staffed, and what they are expected to contribute.

Several contributors describe what this looks like in practice. In M&A and private equity, it means being present when the deal structure is being conceived, not only when the documentation needs reviewing. In compliance and governance, it means sitting at the strategy table rather than in the emergency room. In hospitality and consumer brands, it means understanding the identity of the business well enough to protect it before threats materialise.

The tool most commonly cited is not authority. It is what one contributor calls strategic empathy, the discipline of understanding other functions deeply enough that legal advice lands in their language rather than the language of legal risk. Active listening, deep observation, and the patience to align legal requirements with business objectives rather than impose them: these are described not as soft skills but as the operational foundation of genuine influence.

Others speak of pragmatic courage, the willingness to walk into a boardroom already under pressure and still say the uncomfortable thing, clearly and constructively. Compliance creates real impact only when it sits at the strategy table, and sitting there requires a form of credibility that cannot be borrowed from a title. It has to be built, relationship by relationship, decision by decision.

The most structural example in this report comes from a team redesigned from first principles eight years ago. Hierarchy removed, full remote working implemented, accountability placed entirely on measurable outcomes. The result was not planned as a diversity initiative. It was planned as a performance model. The 50/50 gender balance that emerged was the natural consequence of a system that rewards results rather than presence. The conclusion is sharp: meritocracy is not declared. It is engineered.

Progress and Its Limits: The 2025 Retrospective

When asked to reflect on the most significant positive change of the past year, the lawyers and general counsel in this report did not converge on a single answer. Some saw genuine structural movement. Others were precise about what had not changed. Taken together, their assessments form a picture that is honest without being defeatist.

The shift most frequently identified is qualitative rather than quantitative, a movement from symbolic representation to substantive influence. Women in governance roles, risk oversight, and complex transactions are no longer simply present. In the accounts given here, they are increasingly defining what those roles decide. The legal function, when positioned correctly, becomes a generator of competitive advantage rather than a cost centre, and that repositioning is now happening in enough places to constitute a trend.

The subtlest shift named in these conversations may also be the most significant. Flexibility is becoming gender-neutral. The model in which taking parental leave or leaving at a reasonable hour was coded as a female concession and treated as a professional liability is, in some organisations, giving way to a model where these are simply the conditions of effective work. When that happens, equality accelerates, not because the rules have changed, but because the cultural assumption underneath them has shifted.

Against this, the frank assessments carry equal weight. Equity partnerships in the Italian legal market remain male-dominated. Talented women are well-represented at associate level and significantly underrepresented where equity and governance are decided. The consensus in these conversations is that real structural transformation, if the current pace holds, will take decades rather than years.

The data provides the sharpest grounding. The IX Rapporto sull’Avvocatura, published by Censis and Cassa Forense, offers a precise picture. Under 34, women outnumber men in the Italian legal profession, with 57.2% of young lawyers female. That majority disappears with age. Women leave the profession at a higher rate than men, on average at 44, precisely the moment when careers in law typically consolidate into seniority and earnings power. The Censis report calls it plainly: an abandonment. Female lawyers declare 50% of the income reported by their male counterparts. Progress in the profession is genuine, and it is happening inside a country that has not yet moved.

The Business Case, and the Cultural Shift Still Required

The business case for diverse leadership is no longer seriously contested in these conversations. The more interesting question is how it is actually made, and what cultural changes are still required before it sticks.

The strongest advocates in this report do not make the argument from principle. They make it from data and from concrete cases. In supervisory boards, crisis committees, and advisory bodies, diverse groups identify risks more rapidly and with less cognitive bias. Homogeneous teams tend to replicate established patterns while heterogeneous teams introduce constructive tension, debate, and the ability to identify variables that might otherwise remain invisible. Diversity, in this framing, is not a communication lever. It is a multiplier of quality.

The same logic applies to client-facing work. General counsel are not looking for slogans about equality. They are looking for consistency and accountability. A commitment to diversity becomes a competitive asset when it is embedded in team composition, leadership pathways, and everyday culture, not when it is articulated in a slide. In beauty contests and pitches, the question has shifted from stated commitment to demonstrated evidence.

On what still needs to change, the contributors to this report are remarkably consistent. The Italian legal market still rewards visibility over value, late-night emails over strategic thinking, constant availability over quality of judgment. This model structurally disadvantages women not because of any lack of ability, but because of an asymmetry in care responsibilities that society has not yet resolved.

The solution identified across these conversations is not to ask women to adapt to the model but to redesign the model itself. Define performance by results and leadership quality rather than hours and presence, and a much wider range of people can meet the standard. When commitment stops being a proxy for availability and starts meaning the quality of judgment and the impact of decisions, the incentive structure changes for everyone.

One persistent obstacle named in these conversations is the assumption that women are less ambitious, less interested in positions of power, less committed to the job. The assumption is wrong. And until it stops shaping how people get promoted, no amount of formal commitment to equality will move the needle at the level that matters.

The coming era of AI is cited by several contributors as a potential equaliser. As automation takes over technical tasks, the skills that remain decisive are the human ones: empathy, relational intelligence, the ability to read a room and lead through complexity. These are qualities that many women have developed not because they are inherent, but because the environments they have operated in required them.

Mentorship, Sponsorship, and the Architecture of Networks

One word came up more than any other in this section of the research: sponsorship. Not mentorship. The distinction matters, and it is made with precision across multiple conversations.

Mentorship shapes thinking. Sponsorship shapes opportunities. A mentor advises. A sponsor advocates, recommends, opens doors, puts their reputation on the line. Both have value. But only one of them changes where a career ends up. And in the Italian legal market, sponsorship remains the rarer of the two.

The clearest examples in this report are structural. Running sponsorship as a formal process inside talent reviews, naming high-potential women explicitly, assigning them to visible work, ensuring they are in front of decision-makers, is described as a deliberate discipline, not a personal favour. Women who reach the top of this profession have an obligation to do it, not just to serve as role models but to actively move others forward.

The group most frequently identified as needed sponsors is senior men. They hold the social capital in most organisations. Using it on behalf of promising women is not charity. It is what good leadership looks like. Progress happens fastest when men and women sponsor each other.

On the question of female solidarity, the conversations in this report are candid rather than comfortable. In earlier generations, in male-dominated environments, some senior women were not always eager to see other women rise alongside them. The encouraging observation is that this dynamic has begun to shift. More women are consciously choosing collaboration over competition, particularly among younger generations.

The phenomenon of reversed mentoring also surfaces in these conversations. Younger women often have a freer mindset, fewer internalised limits, and a directness that challenges their seniors. They expect fairness as a baseline rather than an achievement. In many cases, they are mentoring the generation above them, particularly in confidence, digital fluency, and cultural courage. This is not a complaint. It is a source of genuine optimism about where the profession is heading.

The Strategists

From Support to Strategy: Redefining the Function

If the evolution of the legal function is the central story of this report, the evolution of legal marketing and business development is its less-told but equally important subplot. For decades, marketing in law firms was perceived as a support function: events, materials, visibility management. The professionals gathered in this section have spent their careers dismantling that perception, positioning themselves not as communicators of value but as architects of it.

The turning point, as described in these conversations, was the shift from delivering execution to delivering insight. When marketing begins contributing sector analysis, interpretation of client dynamics, pipeline monitoring, and competitive positioning rather than simply producing materials, the seat at the strategy table becomes natural. The function stops reporting activities and starts framing decisions in terms of market positioning, competitive advantage, and long-term sustainability.

Marketing and BD become genuinely strategic when they intervene before decisions are made rather than after, when they influence which sectors a firm invests in, how practice areas are structured, how competencies are integrated, and where geographic priorities are set. The transition is from a function that communicates value to one that helps shape it.

The inside-out approach emerges as a distinctive model: building a sense of belonging and consistent internal communication first, so that the firm’s values become recognisable externally in a credible and natural way. When the internal culture is coherent, the external brand follows without effort. When it is not, no amount of external communication can compensate.

Diversity as a Competitive Asset in Pitches and Beauty Contests

All of the strategists in this report address the question of how diversity is communicated and demonstrated in client-facing contexts. The consensus is clear: stating a commitment to equality is no longer sufficient. It has to be embedded in evidence.

General counsel are not looking for a slide on inclusion. They are looking for consistency, diverse team composition in the pitch itself, women at all levels of seniority and responsibility, leadership pathways that are transparent rather than informal. When the team assembled for a presentation reflects the values being described, the commitment is credible. When it does not, nothing else in the pitch recovers the gap.

The most powerful example cited in these conversations is a beauty contest where, instead of a generic equality statement, the pitching team showed how its diverse composition had specifically anticipated regulatory risks and stakeholder reactions that a more homogeneous team had missed. That changed the tone of the conversation entirely. Diversity was no longer a claim. It was a demonstrated advantage.

Firms that integrate female leadership at the partnership level and hold sustainability and ESG certifications are described as having a structural advantage that marketing can amplify but cannot create from nothing. The role of the strategist is to turn genuine commitment into verifiable data, credible storytelling, and a coherent brand identity, so that during presentations, the firm’s equality culture is perceived as a tangible benefit for the client.

The Network as Engine of Growth

Legal marketing in Italy is a tight-knit community, and the exchange among its professionals, particularly women, emerges across these conversations as a key driver of individual and collective development. For professionals working alone as the sole marketing function in their firm, the peer network of women in equivalent roles at other firms becomes the primary reference point: shared thinking on similar challenges, mutual support, and the kind of collective intelligence that no single firm can generate alone.

The advice offered to younger professionals entering legal marketing is consistent: talk to lawyers every day. Understanding their world is the strongest asset a marketing professional can develop. Relevance in a law firm comes from measurable impact, not from being liked. And visibility, when grounded in expertise and substance, strengthens credibility over time in ways that no shortcut can replicate.

The Inspiring Women: A Collective Tribute

The contributors to this report were asked who inspires their daily work. What follows is a collective tribute to the figures they named: a window into the models of leadership, integrity, and courage that shape the women shaping this profession.

Christine Lagarde, for navigating geopolitical complexity with integrity and institutional vision, and for the profound impact a female leader can have at the highest levels of global governance.

Claudia Parzani, for linking leadership to responsibility and long-term thinking, and for concrete commitment to inclusion within Italian institutional life.

Marta Cartabia, for demonstrating that authority derives from the consistency between principles and actions, and from the primacy of the public interest over contingent convenience.

Michelle Obama, for finding her own voice, championing her own themes, and leading with intelligence, authenticity, and vision, showing that leadership is not only about achieving results but about creating positive change.

Mary Barra, for transformative leadership in a global organisation under pressure, proving that technical mastery paired with bold long-term strategy is the most effective way to lead through change.

Amal Clooney, for operating at the intersection of law and institutional power with precision and ethical coherence, making human rights cases that shape international law.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for fierce advocacy for gender equality within institutional structures, proof that persistence within the system can change what the system decides.

Indra Nooyi, for her philosophy of performance with purpose, demonstrating that empathy and high performance are not in tension but are mutually reinforcing.

Margaret Thatcher, for leading without apology in a system not designed for her, a powerful example of strength, conviction, and the refusal to wait for permission.

Eileen Gu, for excelling under a level of scrutiny that male peers rarely face, and for the grace and determination with which she has navigated questions about identity, nationality, and achievement.

Federica Marchionni, for dreaming big and acting boldly, one of the first Italian women to lead companies listed on Wall Street, and a consistent advocate for collective genius and optimistic leadership.

Giulia Bianchi Frangipane, for combining strength and gentleness, remarkable legal competence with an authentic and warm presence, and for her active engagement in inclusion and social responsibility at BonelliErede.

Mariangela Pira, for integrity combined with passion for her work, a daily reminder that credibility and authenticity are inseparable.

Valentina Ranno, for exemplary ethical leadership combining integrity, competence, and strategic clarity, and for her strong commitment to women’s empowerment.

Teresa Paz, for authentic leadership: the rare ability to be both highly professional and deeply human at the same time.

Daniela Morante, for deep expertise and a daily commitment to identifying cross-functional opportunities, always looking beyond the immediate.

Silvia Hodges, for pioneering a structured approach to marketing within Italian law firms at a time when the integration of marketing within the legal profession was still uncommon.

Giulia Cipollini, for demonstrating what sponsorship looks like in practice: believing in others early, generously opening networks, and showing that the most powerful thing a senior leader can do is create space for others.

In Memoriam: Rosella Antonucci, remembered as a talented lawyer with great commercial acumen and a rare ability to combine technical rigour with genuine human warmth. Her memory continues to inspire.

The Architecture of Influence

What emerges from these 36 conversations is not a single narrative but a set of overlapping ones: about patience and impatience, about progress that is real and barriers that are equally real, about the gap between what organisations say about equality and what their promotion data actually shows. The picture is not simple, and the contributors to this report did not try to make it so.

The most consistent message across these conversations is not inspirational. It is operational. Build the skills. Build the relationships. Build visibility around the work, not around the performance of it. Find organisations where the culture matches the stated values, and leave the ones where it does not. Sponsor others the way you wished someone had sponsored you. The profession changes when the people inside it decide to change it, one decision at a time.

The structural work is not finished. The cultural shift is underway. The 36 women in these pages are doing both simultaneously, and they are doing it without waiting for either to be complete.

The full conversations are in the articles that follow. They are worth reading in their own words.