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As is being widely reported, Carroll, Burdick & McDonough LLP has named Vicki Frieman its second woman managing partner. This is remarkable, all the more so because Ms. Frieman was apparently groomed for the position by the firm's first female managing partner, Angela Bradstreet. Succession planning of this sort -- a clear best practice -- has been a topic at PAR's annual conference and at presentations by PAR about retaining and advancing women lawyers.

So that got us to thinking: are there other firms out there that have had two female managing partners? We searched our hard drives and collective memories (and the Internet) and came up with the following examples:

Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell (Jerry Clements and Harriet Miers)
Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler (Rochelle Korman and Antonia Grumbach)
Munger Tolles & Olson (Sandra Seville-Jones, current co-managing partner, is the second of two)
(Disclosure: Munger Tolles is a sustaining member of PAR)

Expanding our inquiry beyond firm-wide managing partner positions, we found the following examples of firms that have had more than one female managing partner of an office (current and former):

Eight
Reed Smith (Judy Harris, DC; Janet Kwuon, Los Angeles; Bette Epstein and Sonja Weissman, Oakland; Claudia Springer, Philadelphia; Carolyn Duronio, Pittsburgh; Nanette Mantell, Princeton; Karen Fegelson, Virginia)

Seven
Littler Mendelson (Linda Headley, Houston; Jennifer Walt, San Francisco; Erin Webber, Denver; Katherine Flanagan, Houston; Sue Marie Douglas, Cleveland; Lori A. Brown, Miami; Wendy Krincek, Las Vegas/Reno)

Three
Foley & Lardner (Nancy Geenen in San Francisco, Nicole Lamb-Hale in Detroit, and Nancy Sennett in Milwaukee)
Pillsbury Winthrop ( Sue Hodges, San Diego offices; Maureen Dwyer, DC; Meg Utterback, Shanghai) -- Pillsbury also had a female chair, Mary Cranston, and a female firm-wide managing partner, Marina Park, until 2007.

Two
Hogan & Hartson (Ann Morgan Vickery in D.C. and Emily Yinger in Northern Virginia)
Ballard Spahr (Lynn Axelroth and Lynn Rzonca, both in the Philadelphia office)
Epstein Becker & Green (Maxine Hicks in the Atlanta office and Susan Pravda in the Boston office)
Seyfarth Shaw (Lisa Damon in Boston and Loria Almon, co-managing partner, in New York)

Honorable mention:
Stoel Rives has had one firm-wide female managing partner (Beth Ugoretz, 2005 - 2008) and one female office managing partner (Virginia Pedreira, Seattle).

(Disclosure: Foley & Lardner and Hogan & Hartson are PAR members)

It is a good start.

Joan and Cynthia of PAR co-authored Legal Talent at the Crossroads: Why New Jersey Women Lawyers Leave the Law Firms and Why They Choose to Stay. The report is noteworthy for a number of reasons. Here are a few:

While other studies have documented that women leave firms that don't have good flexible work programs, this study goes a step further and documents that flexible work programs are a key factor in their search for their next position -- and that many find what they are looking for with their new employer. The take-away for law firms is that effective, non-stigmatized flexible work programs are not "perks" but rather are recruiting and retention tools that will increase their ranks of women lawyers.

This study also documents the advantage many male attorneys have: someone else who takes care of their family-related obligations, which allows them to focus more and for longer hours on their careers. (As Deborah Rhode says, "If women aren't running the world, it is probably because men aren't running the vacuum cleaners.") The women lawyers who participated in the study frequently noted that this imbalance gave their male counterparts a leg up in the race to partnership, and contributed to a lack of understanding on the part of older male partners of the women lawyers' work/life balance struggles.

Another interesting feature of the study was its focus, through interviews, on the factors that helped some senior women partners stay and succeed in their law firms. Most of the women noted that hard work alone is not enough because of the obstacles women lawyers face in their careers. Some of the factors that helped them to succeed were role models and mentors, supportive partners or spouses at home who did a significant amount of family-related work, and law firms that supported work/life balance without stigma. Of particular use to younger women lawyers, the report contains a lengthy section of advice from the successful senior women.

The report concludes with detailed best practices for law firms that want to retain and advance their women lawyers. In addition to specific steps for implementing a non-stigmatized flexible work program, the best practices include reviewing assignment and evaluation systems to eliminate hidden gender bias, making promotion criteria transparent, ensuring that women are not socially isolated within their firms, creating business development opportunities for women, and reducing gender bias throughout the law firm.

This is an important report, one that is worth reading and passing along to your colleagues. As always, PAR is interested in hearing your reactions.

Our economic analysis of balanced hours vs. layoffs is now posted on our website.

In our research, we learned an interesting bit of information from Jim Sandman, former managing partner of Arnold & Porter, about the realities of layoffs: not all billable hours get shifted from departing lawyers to remaining lawyers. He said:

The theory of layoffs is that you align capacity with available work by transferring the billable hours of those lawyers laid off to those who remain, filling up the available time of the survivors. But not everyone has the same skill set, and a material portion of the billable hours of those laid off never transfers. So of the 1500 billable hours a laid-off associate might have had, only 1200 might be retained and assumed by others. That’s a loss of 20 percent of the revenue that was generated by the laid-off associate.

His point makes PAR's economic analysis more compelling. PAR's analysis gives an example of a small practice group that would save $240,000 with reduced hours but only $211,000 with a layoff, but that example assumes that all of the hours the laid off attorney would have billed will be billed by the others in the department. If the practice group loses 300 of those hours, at a rate of $350 per hour, the practice group would net just $106,000 from the layoff. The practice group would still save the entire $240,000 if instead the non-partners in the group reduced their hours and compensation by 20% because the skill sets and client relationships needed to bill those 300 hours would still be retained by the firm.

On our website, we list some companies that are reducing employees' hours in lieu of layoffs. If you know of others, please contact us.

San Francisco (February 23, 2009) –Law firms’ 2009 new partner classes show little progress for women lawyers. The good news is that at 23 of the 100 firms surveyed by the Project for Attorney Retention, the new partner classes were at least 40% female. The bad news is that the gain is offset by the failure of 14 firms to make any female partners.

The best: Cravath (67%), Dickstein Shapiro (67%), Wiley Rein (60%), Andrews Kurth (57%), Bryan Cave (56%), Arent Fox (50%), Baker & Daniels (50%), Hogan & Hartson (50%), Holland and Hart (50%), King and Spalding (50%), Luce Forward (50%), Simpson Thacher (50%), and Sullivan & Cromwell (50%). A special mention goes to Farella Braun, whose only new partner is female (100%).

Honorable mentions: Dorsey & Whitney (47%), Kilpatrick Stockton (44%), Seyfarth Shaw (44%), Crowell & Moring (43%), Jackson Lewis (43%), Cooley Godward (43%), Perkins Coie (42%), Arnold & Porter (40%), and WilmerHale (40%). Notable achievement: the following firms have promoted new partner classes that were 40% or more female for the past three years: Arnold & Porter, Crowell & Moring, Perkins Coie, and Sullivan and Cromwell.

The worst: None of the following firms made a female partner this year: Cadwalader, Cleary Gottlieb, Dechert, Foley Hoag, Kaye Scholer, Lowenstein Sandler, Milbank, Schulte Roth, Steptoe, Strook, Venable, Wachtell, White & Case, and Wilkie Farr.

Not much better: Pillsbury Winthrop (9%), Latham & Watkins (10%), O’Melveny (11%), Howrey (13%), Finnegan Henderson (13%), Morrison & Foerster (13%), Winston & Strawn (13%), Locke Lord (14%), Nixon Peabody (14%), DLA Piper (15%), Ropes (17%) and Akin Gump (17%).

The complete chart can be found here.


“This year’s new partner classes are a mixed bag for women lawyers,” said Cynthia Calvert, Co-Director of the Project for Attorney Retention. “Many firms are promoting a significant number of women, which shows that firms can be successful in retaining and advancing their women lawyers. We are disheartened, though, by the large number of firms that did not make any women partners.”

Joan Williams, Co-Director of the Project for Attorney Retention, believes the firms that didn’t make female partners this year need to determine why they are not grooming female associates in equal number with male associates. “These numbers show which firms need to work harder at promoting women lawyers,” she said. “They provide valuable information for women law students who are choosing their future employers and for clients who are interested in retaining law firms where women lawyers can succeed.”

Firms were chosen for this survey based on inclusion in prior years’ surveys, firm size, reputation and availability of information. Twenty-three new firms were added to those surveyed last year. The chart reflects information for past years for 100 firms, but 15 of those have not yet reported their 2009 partner classes. As in prior years, information is included only for the firms’ U.S. offices. Many of the firms that are noted as the best or as honorable mentions are members of the Project for Attorney Retention (Dickstein, Hogan, Andrews Kurth, Bryan Cave, Luce Forward, Farella Braun, Crowell & Moring, Jackson Lewis, Arnold & Porter, Arent Fox and WilmerHale); this reflects those firms’ commitment to advancing women lawyers rather than favoritism on our part.

A few observations: for most of the firms with the highest percentage of new female partners, this year is not an aberration but part of a pattern of promoting a significant proportion of women, as shown in the chart. The converse is not necessarily true. For many of the firms labeled “the worst,” this year does appear to be an aberration. Cadwalader, Cleary Gottlieb, Kaye Scholer, Lowenstein and Steptoe have been notably more successful in the past.

The Project for Attorney Retention, a nonprofit organization that studies the advancement of women lawyers and work/life issues for all lawyers, is headquartered at UC Hastings College of the Law. Its co-directors are Joan C. Williams, distinguished professor of law at Hastings, and Cynthia Thomas Calvert, a former law firm litigation partner. This research was spearheaded by Calvert and Linda Bray Chanow, PAR’s director of research. PAR is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and other grantors, and by its law department and law firm members. For more information, visit PAR’s website.

Registration is now open for PAR's second annual conference: Strategies for Advancing Women Lawyers in Turbulent Times on March 5, 2009 on the campus of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. As you can see from the agenda, it is going to be fabulous. Outstanding speakers, cutting-edge issues, and armloads of practical information will be featured. Here's the agenda:

8:30 Registration

9:00 Keynote: Does it Pay to Advance Women Lawyers during Turbulent Times?

Joan C. Williams, PAR

Linda Chanow and Linda Marks, PAR

Leslie Turner, Coca Cola
María Meléndez, Sidley & Austin
Emily Finn, Latham & Watkins
Moderator - Carter DeLorme, Jones Day

Table heads: Karen Lockwood, Howrey; Linda Oliver, Hogan & Hartson; Mara Senn, Arnold & Porter; Monica Parham, Crowell Moring; Ellen Ostrow , Lawyers Life Coach; Ida Abbott, Ida Abbott Consulting; MJ Tocci, Fulcrum Advisors; Natalie Hiott-Levine, PAR.

Cynthia Thomas Calvert, PAR
Consuela Pinto, PAR
Moderator: Kate Fritz, Fenwick & West

Teri McClure, UPS
James Potter, Del Monte
Laura Stein, Clorox
Moderator: Manar Morales, PAR

Lisa Horowitz, National Association of Women Lawyers
Christine A. Edwards, Winston & Strawn
Cynthia Thomas Calvert, PAR

Joan C. Williams, PAR

The cost is only $199 for the full-day conference, lunch, and materials. Seating is limited (last year's conference filled quickly). PAR members, who get two free admissions to the event, will have priority and then admission will be first-come, first-served based on registration date. If you agree that this is a can't-miss event, register asap here.

If you want to read the NLJ article that started this topic, it is now available online without a subscription: Layoff Alternative: Reducing Associate Hours.

We said we would discuss a possibly valid objection to PAR's suggestion that law firms consider reducing associates' hours in lieu of layoffs, so in the interest of robust debate, here goes.

The slowed economy is giving law firms a reason to make cuts in the associate ranks that they should have already made, regardless of their financial position. For whatever reason -- the need for warm bodies to do work or aversion to terminations -- firms have continued the employment of associates whom they knew did not have a future with the them. To the extent cuts should have happened anyway, we agree that reducing hours is not a good alternative to layoffs.

Now that we've looked at the pros and cons, we'd like to hear back from you. Is your firm using reduced hours as an alternative to layoffs? If you're in law firm management, is it something you're considering? If you're an associate, would you be willing to reduce your hours and compensation in exchange for continued employment? You can comment here on the blog, or comment privately through our website.