Up to PAR

Member Best Practice: O’Melveny & Myers Supports the Back-to-Work Transition

2012-01-09T13:04:00.001-05:00

Firms are finding that offering on-ramping programs to help smooth the transition back to work from leave are being met with positive feedback and are having strong retention benefits as well. PAR has collected best practices in the area of on-ramping.

Firms are getting creative with their on-ramping offerings. (See our blog on On-Ramping Options). PAR Member O’Melveny & Myers launched its unique Momentum One program last year. Momentum One offers new parents one-on-one videoconference coaching sessions with licensed clinical social workers who are “transition specialists.”

Rochelle Karr, the firm’s Director of Attorney Professional Development & Alumni Relations, piloted the program along with an attorney in the firm. Both found the program valuable because of its focus on the challenges of parenting and practical advice.

Karr noted that the Momentum One program has been a great fit with the firm culture and their maternity leave and on-ramping offerings already in place. Karr noted that “We give [our attorneys] 18 weeks of paid leave; it would not make any business sense whatsoever to then say, ‘Come on back, and hope it all goes well. And here’s a bunch of work assignments, and good luck.’ Why not just ease that for them a little bit and nurture our investment?” Proactively giving their attorneys tools to solve their parenting dilemmas with a trained professional helps the attorneys find solutions that may seem insurmountable while trying to meet professional obligations. The firm has received positive feedback on the program and is pleased with its success thus far.

Highlights from PAR’s Flex Success Conversation “Advancing Balanced Hours Lawyers”

2011-12-05T15:23:00.001-05:00

PAR’s inaugural Flex Success Conversation last month was full of strategies for organizational change and individual success under balanced hours programs. The program was well-attended by reduced hours lawyers from firms and in-house, as well as law firm and legal department leaders and managers interested in success for lawyers working on flexible schedules. Here are some highlights:

The first panel focused on how to engage clients and law firm leaders in the conversation about success as flexible work attorneys. Emily Yinger, Regional Managing Partner (Hogan Lovells US), Kenneth Grady, General Counsel (Wolverine Worldwide), Kerry Kotouc, General Counsel, Corporate Affairs/Government Relations (Wal-Mart Stores), and Benjamin Wilson, Managing Principal (Beveridge & Diamond) described how they set the tone both in their organizations and as proponent of advancement of women in law firms, how they signal support for balanced hours, and how they have overcome obstacles. Some takeaways:

• Having a strong balanced hours policy is a great start, but it needs to be followed up with strong signs of support and re-assurance from firm leaders and clients.
• In-house lawyers can advocate for their valued outside counsel.
• Clients and law firms lawyers need to communicate about what is important to them and put together agreed-upon metrics to measure success.

The second panel presented strategies for career advancement on balanced hours schedules from successful part-time partners Eve Howard (Hogan Lovells US), Marci Rose Levine (SNR Denton), and Christopher Rhee (Arnold & Porter). Heidi Chen, Assistant General Counsel (Pfizer) rounded out the panel with the client’s perspective. Some takeaways:

• Business is global and virtual, so flexibility is a natural fit in that environment.
• Balanced hours need to be looked at on an annualized basis. Working a reduced schedule requires flexibility on behalf of the firm and the attorney.
• A key to success is to make yourself an indispensible part of the team; when you are involved with firm management, you show your strong firm ties.
• All lawyers need to carve out time for business development, firm duties, and other personal interests.

Before ending the day with a networking reception, U.S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau Director Sara Manzano-Diaz gave a keynote speech which emphasized that issues of workplace flexibility now have a national platform. She also noted that technology is changing the way we work, enabling flexibility in when, how, and where we work.

Many thanks to Hogan Lovells US LLP for hosting the Flex Success Conversation in its D.C. offices. We appreciate their help in making this inaugural event so successful. PAR Flex Success Conversations will continue with programs in different areas throughout the country. We hope you will join us.

The Diversity & Flexibility Connection in Action: Walmart Legal Department Shows Support for Flexible Work

2011-10-11T12:55:00.002-04:00

The Walmart Legal Department has been a vocal and active participant in PAR’s Diversity & Flexibility Connection, committing to referring work to balanced hours lawyers, signaling support for flexible work, and effective implementation of their own commitment to diversity and flexibility.

At last month’s Walmart Legal SuperConference, over 1000 of Walmart’s outside lawyers came to Bentonville to participate in two days of programming, the majority of which centered around diversity, inclusion, and flexible work. Walmart highlighted its Diversity Partners, including PAR, and gave participants concrete information and suggestions for making a more inclusive legal profession. PAR Executive Director Manar Morales spoke during both the plenary diversity and inclusion panel and a breakout session on work/life balance and flex time.

Walmart highlighted its commitment to flexible work by recognizing Marci Rose Levine, the practice leader of PAR Member SNR Denton’s health care team, for Excellent Performance and Commitment to Work-Life Balance. Marci has worked a balanced hours schedule for eight years, both as an associate and now as a partner. Marci provides outstanding legal service to Walmart’s Health & Wellness team while also holding a leadership position in her firm. Walmart’s public acknowledgment of how well a balanced hours arrangement works for them is commendable. Marci will be one of our panelists at our upcoming PAR Flex Success Conversation: Advancing Balanced Hours Lawyers (on November 9th in Washington DC).

In addition, Walmart honored Littler Mendelson, also a PAR member, for looking at different ways to approach flexibility as a firm with its recognition for its Innovation in Promoting Work-Life Balance.

By looking internally, partnering with diversity organizations, and providing their outside counsel with expectations and tools for inclusion, Walmart Legal is expanding the conversation and helping ensure progress.

Highlights from the Hastings Leadership Academy for Women

2011-08-12T13:04:00.002-04:00

At last month’s Hastings Leadership Academy for Women (LAW), twenty-one women partners from firms across the country spent three and a half focused days on building their leadership skills with business-based curriculum and practical skills practice. Here are some highlights:

Ida Abbott, Co-Director of LAW, led off the program with a discussion of women’s leadership roles and paths for getting there. Ida set a framework for different ways people approach their career planning: setting goals, setting direction, and having a general sense of what’s important to them.

An especially lively discussion centered around social networks. Professor Joan C. Williams, Co-Director of LAW, led a program which reviewed the social science research on networks. Joan explained the differences between “clique networks,” that is, networks that are closed and where everyone knows each other, and “entrepreneurial networks” where one person can serve as a connector of otherwise unconnected networks. Participants learned about the value of both strong ties and breaking into new circles and talked about ways to cement weak ties.

This conversation tied in well with the program “ Bringin’ in the Rain: Effective Business Development” with Sara Holtz. Sara focused on developing the marketing mindset and having consistent follow up with a short list of high potential business prospects.

Carol Frohlinger worked with the participants to negotiate for themselves in her workshop “Claiming Your Place at the Table.” She laid out a negotiation framework and highlighted strategic moves, helping the partners to approach self-advocacy with the same skills and confidence that they use for their clients. With the information from the PAR/MCCA study on compensation systems, this conversation led to much discussion on how to negotiate for fair compensation.

A keynote speech from Mary Cranston was the highlight of the day where LAW alumnae and in-house counsel also attended. Mary spoke honestly about her vision, facing fears, and setting goals (without judgment as to the outcome) as keys to her career success. It was truly an inspirational talk.

The Leadership Academy will take place again July 11-14, 2012 in San Francisco, with a special day of programming for alumnae and in-house counsel on July 13th. More information will be posted at www.attorneyretention.org/LAW.

Telecommuting Successes: Lessons from Legal Departments

2011-07-05T17:40:00.001-04:00

By including telecommuting as part of a flexible work program, legal employers can reduce the stigma often associated with utilizing flexible work arrangements by offering an option that is widely utilized by male and female employees, parents and non-parents alike. PAR member Accenture, which has offered telecommuting for more than ten years, reaps the benefit of including so many male employees in their flexible work arrangements program through telecommuting. Similarly, PAR member Allstate’s legal department has found that the company’s work-at-home option is the most popular flexible work option with men.

Best practice telecommuting programs are:

• Available to all employees who can conceivably work remotely (reduces backlash and stigma).
• Define “core hours” when the telecommuter is to be available.
• Provide training for supervisors.
• Provide technology and support.
• Ensure compliance with employment laws.

PAR member policies (both law firms and legal departments) highlight the importance of these best practices:

• Offer the same compensation, benefits, and promotion opportunities to telecommuters as to those not telecommuting.
• Establish a consistent schedule.
• Ensure effective accessibility.

Promotion of Women Lawyers Stalls

2011-06-21T17:00:00.002-04:00

33% of New U.S. Partners are Female, Compared to 34% in 2010

There is not a lot to celebrate when it comes to the gender composition of the new partner classes. According to an updated survey of the new partner class of 2011 released by the Project for Attorney Retention (PAR) on June 14, 2011, law firms slid one percentage point in promotions of women attorneys in U.S. offices since last year, nearly 33% compared to 34% in 2010.

There were some bright spots. Of the 123 firms surveyed in 2011, 22 had new partner classes that were composed of at least 50% women.

Kudos to the firms with the greatest proportion of women in their new partner class of 2011:
• Zuckerman Spaeder promoted only one attorney, a female (1 promotion; 100% female)
• Beveridge & Diamond (6 promotions; 83% female)
• WilmerHale (10 promotions; 80% female)
• Thompson Hine (7 promotions; 71% female)
• Manatt, Phelps & Phillips (13 promotions; 69% female)
• Baker & Daniels (6 promotions; 67% female)
• Arnold & Porter (3 promotions; 67% female)
• Munger, Tolles & Olson (3 promotions; 67% female)
• Steptoe & Johnson (3 promotions; 67% female)
• Foley Hoag (5 promotions; 60% female)
• Husch Blackwell (5 promotions; 60% female)
• Seyfarth Shaw (14 promotions; 57% female)
• Littler Mendelson (14 promotions; 57% female)

Raised eyebrows to the firms that elected more than one attorney to the partnership, but included no women in their new partner class of 2011:
• Hunton & Williams (6 promotions; 0 female)
• Proskauer Rose (6 promotions; 0 female)
• Sheppard Mullin (6 promotions; 0 female)
• Boies, Schiller & Flexner (3 promotions; 0 female)
• Cadwalader (3 promotions; 0 female)
• Lowenstein Sandler (3 promotions; 0 female)
• Dickstein Shapiro (2 promotions; 0 female)
• Kaye Scholer (2 promotions; 0 female)
• Milbank (2 promotions; 0 female)

The complete list of firms surveyed and the numbers of men and women in their 2011 new partner class is available on PAR's web site.

Firms were chosen for this study based on inclusion in prior years’ surveys, firm size, and availability of information. As in prior years, information is included only for the firms’ U.S. offices.

“While the decrease in the percentage of women promoted to partner in 2011 is small, it has to be viewed in context,” said PAR Executive Director Manar Morales. “There are few female partners to begin with, and even fewer female equity partners. This dip should cause concern because it further delays the day when women lawyers will achieve parity in the profession.”

In 2010, NAWL reported that while women comprise about 60% of staff attorneys, only 15% of equity partners are women. This is not good news for firms. As a recent MCCA study found, law firms with proportionate representation of women from staff attorneys through equity partner levels outperformed disproportionate firms by $20 million.

Several of the firms that had new partner classes that were greater than 50% female are members of the Project for Attorney Retention: Arnold & Porter (promoted 2 women of 3 new partners), Beveridge & Diamond (5/6), Manatt, Phelps & Phillips (9/13), Munger, Tolles & Olson (2/3), and Seyfarth Shaw (8/14). Furthermore, although PAR did not systematically collect data on the numbers of part-time attorneys promoted to partner, PAR acknowledges and commends PAR Members Andrews Kurth, Beveridge & Diamond, and Fulbright & Jaworski for promoting part-time attorneys into their new partner class of 2011. Their PAR membership and numbers of women promoted in their new partner classes reflect these firms’ strong commitment to diversity and the advancement of women lawyers. Special congratulations are extended to other firms whose 2011 new partner cohort also include part-time partners.

A look back at 2010:

It should be noted that among those firms who promoted not a single woman to partner, some have been notably more successful in advancing women attorneys in the past. Last year, Proskauer Rose had a new partner class that included 67% women and PAR Member Dickstein Shapiro’s 2010 class had 40% women.

For many of the firms with new partner classes that included greater proportions of women, the numbers reflect a continued pattern of consistently high numbers of promotions of women attorneys, as shown in the table below.

Congratulations to all the new partners of 2011.

PAR wishes to thank Allison Tait for invaluable research assistance with this survey.

See the chart here.

In-House Lawyers: Help Legal Departments Develop More Effective Work-Life Programs

2011-05-10T13:24:00.002-04:00

Take the survey for in-house lawyers.

Don’t miss your chance to contribute your perspective! PAR is wrapping up the data collection portion of our 2011 Corporate Counsel survey. The survey focuses on push and pull factors for working in-house, characteristics of in-house work affecting work/life balance, succession planning, and work/life policies. Is it better in house? Our 2003 study is ready for an update, but we need your help.

The survey will take approximately 15 minutes to complete and your input into this study will help us to better understand what the challenges are, identify best practices, and ultimately, better address the needs that are yet unmet with respect to work-life balance in-house.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PAR_CorporateCounsel

Highlights from PAR’s Annual Conference

2011-04-08T17:20:00.003-04:00

PAR’s sold-out annual conference last week was overflowing with best practices, real-practice stories, and cautionary tales. In case you missed it, here are some highlights:

The first panel explored how the move away from lockstep is affecting diversity and flexibility. Joan Williams identified risks, such as vague definitions of merit and evaluations tainted with hidden bias, and best practices, such as providing training to evaluators. Nicole Bearce Albano (Lowenstein Sandler), Carter DeLorme (Jones Day), Kristine McKinney (Faegre & Benson), and Laura Saklad (Orrick) described their firms’ positions along the continuum of lockstep to competency-based models, and their experiences with evaluating and developing their associates. Some takeaways:

• Effective evaluation systems are crucial. The process and forms need to be audited for bias, evaluators need to be trained on recognizing and overcoming bias, and someone with expertise in bias needs to review evaluations before they are given to associates.
• A formal system of assigning work that allows associates to ask for and receive particular types of experiences is also crucial.
• Don’t underestimate the amount of management time required by a competency-based system.

The second panel provided insights into the success of PAR’s Diversity and Flexibility connection. Jeff Gearhart (Walmart), Lee Miller (DLA Piper), Michele Coleman Mayes (Allstate), and Elliott Portnoy (SNR Denton) discussed the work they had done in their firms and law departments to provide nonstigmatized reduced-hours schedules. Led by moderator Jim Potter (Del Monte), they also provided insights into the discussions between law firm chairs and general counsel about how each can help the other improve their diversity and flexibility. Some takeaways:

• Clients want firms to have nonstigmatized flexible work, because it reduces attrition and therefore improves productivity and reduces costs.
• Firms that have made serious efforts to provide nonstigmatized flexible work are reaping the benefits: lawyers are staying with the firm and are being promoted to partner, and are maintaining and deepening their ties with clients.
• Clients help the process by letting firms know when balanced hours lawyers have done a good job, and by giving them more work.

After a networking lunch at which the PAR Flex Success awards were presented, Penny Huang presented the preliminary findings of PAR’s current in-house counsel work/life study. Heidi Chen (Pfizer), Michele Coleman Mayes (Allstate), and Martha Rees (DuPont) discussed the business reasons their law departments provide flexibility and their experiences implementing balanced hours programs. Some takeaways:

• Managing expectations is key. It is important for lawyers to know real deadlines for their work, and it is important for internal clients to know that they won’t always get an answer right away on non-urgent matters.
• Transparency about compensation and advancement helps to eliminate stigma.

Following roundtable discussions facilitated by in-house counsel, the final panel of the day examined new models of legal practice. Jane Allen (Counsel on Call), Kate Fritz (Fenwick & West), Doug Scrivner (Accenture, ret.), and Michele Tyde (Tyde Law Group) discussed how their firms were structured, and how the structures provided work/life fit for their lawyers. Some takeaways:

• New models are often born of the desire to offer talented attorneys an opportunity to practice law with more control over their schedules, interests, and work/life fit, and also to respond to clients' desire for lower rates.
• Alternative fee arrangements are common at new model firms, removing the billable hour as the key metric. New model lawyers can provide top quality legal services at a cost savings for clients.

Many thanks to DLA Piper for hosting the conference in its fabulous D.C. offices. Many thanks also to the conference sponsors: DLA Piper, Arnold & Porter, Crowell & Moring, Dickstein Shapiro, Del Monte Foods, Fenwick & West, Fulbright & Jaworski, Pfizer, SNR Denton, Walmart, Dewy & LeBoeuf, Farella Braun & Martel, Hogan Lovells, Jones Day, Lowenstein Sandler, and Morrison & Foerster. We appreciate your help in making the conference so successful.

A tip for those who would like to attend next year’s conference: PAR’s conferences usually sell out quickly, so watch PAR’s website in early 2012 for registration information. PAR members are able to register before the general public. Membership information is available here.

New PAR Book: Flex Success

2011-04-04T14:56:00.002-04:00

We are very excited to announce that PAR’s new book, Flex Success: The Lawyer’s Guide to Balanced Hours by PAR founders Cynthia Calvert and Joan Williams, is now available. Here is an excerpt from the press release:

Working part-time no longer means a dead-end career. A new book by the Project for Attorney Retention, FLEX SUCCESS: THE LAWYER’S GUIDE TO BALANCED HOURS, shows how strategic career moves and careful avoidance of obstacles can propel reduced-hours lawyers to the top of the legal profession.

Drawing on lessons learned from a decade of research and work with successful part-time lawyers, the book provides step-by-step directions for proactively managing a part-time career toward advancement and financial rewards. The book’s authors, PAR founders Cynthia Thomas Calvert and Joan C. Williams, discuss planning and negotiating a reduced-hours schedule, making the schedule work, overcoming hidden bias against reduced-hours lawyers, and positioning one’s career for advancement. Real-life stories from successful balanced hours lawyers and practical wisdom from some of the country’s foremost experts on work/life balance in the legal profession illustrate the authors’ points throughout.

“This book helps not just lawyers, but also their firms and their clients,” said PAR Executive Director Manar Morales. “PAR’s research has shown that balanced hours, which are nonstigmatized reduced hours that emphasize client service and allow attorney advancement, retain talented lawyers. As more balanced hours lawyers become successful partners, the legal profession will benefit.”

The book is available on Amazon. It is a sequel to PAR’s book for law firms about how to implement a nonstigmatized reduced-hours program, Solving The Part-Time Puzzle: The Law Firm’s Guide To Balanced Hours (NALP 2004).

PAR is planning to hold a series of Flex Success events to discuss how balanced hours lawyers can advance professionally. Check PAR’s website for more information, or contact PAR to discuss scheduling an event for your firm, bar association, or other group.

PAR Launches Nationwide Survey of Work/Life Issues for In-House Counsel

2011-03-21T13:17:00.003-04:00

In-House Lawyers: Take the survey.

PAR is currently doing a follow up study to its report on work/life balance for in-house attorneys, Better on Balance? The Corporate Counsel Work/Life Report (2003). That report focused on three principal goals: one, identify the types of work schedules that in-house attorneys use successfully to find work/life balance; two, develop best practices and a model policy; and three, test the perception of many law firm partners that corporate counsel, as clients, would not want to work with law firm attorneys who were working part-time. The project examined the work schedules used by in-house counsel to create work/life balance and best practices for retaining attorneys through non-stigmatized flexible work arrangements. Additionally, the project studied ways that legal departments, as clients, can assist law firms in decreasing turnover and promoting stability in attorney-client relationships.

The first part of the new 2011 study consisted of a series of focus groups designed to explore the work/life issues that in-house counsel identify as relevant and important to them and to get their experiences with work/life balance. PAR has just launched the second part of the study, a nationwide survey for in-house lawyers. If you currently work in-house, we would value your participation.

The survey will take approximately 15 minutes to complete and your input into this study will help us to better understand what the challenges are, identify best practices, and ultimately, better address the needs that are yet unmet with respect to work-life balance in-house.

Your contribution to this effort will help legal departments develop more effective work- life balance programs for in-house attorneys. Please follow this link to contribute your perspective to this study: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PAR_CorporateCounsel.

Preliminary findings from the focus groups and the survey will be presented at our annual conference on March 30th in Washington DC. Sponsored by Walmart, Pfizer, Del Monte, and Dupont.

In-House Lawyers: Take the survey.

PAR Annual Conference to Address Challenges for Diversity & Flexibility in the New Economy

2011-02-28T16:09:00.002-05:00

PAR’s annual conference, As the Legal Profession Turns: New Challenges for Diversity & Flexibility is coming up at the end of next month with an outstanding line up of conference topics and speakers. On March 30 at the offices of DLA Piper in Washington DC, leaders in law firms and legal departments will come together for a lively discussion on topics including:

1. The potential impact of competency-based compensation systems on diversity and flexibility: With the move away from lockstep compensation and advancement, will women and diverse attorneys be left behind or are the new systems helping to create a more even playing field by removing the mystery to advancement? Four law firms who have led the way in the move to merit will discuss how their firms are working to ensure the success of women and diverse attorneys in their firms.

2. Successes and challenges of the Diversity & Flexibility Connection: Just over one year ago, the Diversity & Flexibility Connection participating firms and corporations committed to set up beta programs for supporting a viable work/life component in law firm diversity programs. Prominent general counsels and managing partners will share their organization’s experiences.

3. Preview of the corporate counsel study findings: As a follow up to our 2003 Corporate Counsel Work/Life Report, PAR experts and in-house counsel will provide an update on the 2011 survey. PAR’s new survey will take a close look at work/life balance in-house after the Great Recession.

4. In-house counsel and law firm attorneys working together to advance women in law: A roundtable discussion facilitated by corporate counsel.

5. New models of legal practice: PAR is undertaking a new study of New Model firms, composed of lawyers who have left large-firm practice to found small firms designed to respond both to clients’ desire for lower rates and lawyers’ desire for work-life balance. This panel will discuss different types of new models of legal practice, to understand what draws attorneys to these firms, and to understand their business models.

The PAR conference provides a great opportunity to get up-to-date on the most relevant topics in the retention and advancement of women lawyers and work/life balance for all. In addition, participants will network with other attorneys working on these issues in their organizations. The conference is open for registration.

More Good News on Promotion of Women and Reduced Hours Lawyers

2011-02-07T13:58:00.001-05:00

PAR member Andrews Kurth LLP is making some great progress in promoting women. Forty percent of the firm’s 2011 partner class is women. In addition, two of the four women elected to partnership are on the firm’s Flex Path program.

Andrews Kurth’s success in promoting women, including women on reduced hours schedules, is consistent with PAR’s Part-Time Partner Study, which shows that part-time partners are having successful careers with their law firms. One benefit of supporting part-time partners, which came out in the study, is the retention value. In the study, more than three-fourths of the partners interviewed began working reduced hours at their current firms, and the average tenure of the those partners is 12 years (ranging from four to 37). Given that more than half of women lawyers leave their law firms by their seventh year, this longevity is noteworthy. Most of the respondents to the survey reported being satisfied or very satisfied with their part-time arrangements. Many expressed a desire to stay at their firm; 84% of respondents answering this question said they would stay with their firms for the next five years if it were up to them. By investing in their high-potential women, whether on a regular or reduced schedule, firms will reap the reward of long-term commitment from their partners. As one partner in the study stated, “I would never go to another law firm anywhere, ever, under any circumstances. I’m absolutely certain of that. “

No Part-Time Floodgates

2011-01-21T16:52:00.001-05:00

Recently, NALP reported on the usage of part-time schedules in law firms. NALP’s latest data show that 6.4% of lawyers were working part-time in 2010, and 70% of those part-timers were women. This is up from 5.9% in 2009 and 2.9% in 2001 when PAR published its first report on part-time lawyers. The percentage of part-time lawyers is small, but it’s steadily growing, and that’s a good sign.

During that same period of time, the percentage of law firms offering part-time schedules increased from 85% to 98%. So, while almost all law firms have part-time programs, the argument that offering part-time programs will open the floodgates is indeed a myth.

Another encouraging finding in the study: there was a significant growth rate among part-time partners – from 1.2% in 1994 to 3.6% in 2010. This change is consistent with PAR’s 2009 study on part-time partners, which showed that part-time partners are having successful careers bringing in significant revenue and generating significant books of business.

Resolve to Change the Partner Comp Process this Year

2011-01-05T19:12:00.001-05:00

Last summer, PAR and MCCA published the groundbreaking study on the disparate impact of law firm compensation systems on women. The study concluded that existing compensation systems for lawyers open the door to gender bias because they contain tremendous subjectivity, lack transparency, and because so much of the negotiation surrounding salaries takes place out of sight.

As many firms are in the partner compensation process, we wanted to provide the best practice recommendations to address the problems identified in the study:

1. Make the process transparent
2. Benchmark to check the demographics of compensation levels
3. Improve diversity on the compensation committee and consider implementing a reviewing partner system
4. Have a billable hours threshold with no compensation for billing over
5. Origination credit should not be inheritable; pitch credit as an alternative
6. Set up a diverse committee that handles disputes over origination credit
7. Tie compensation to institutional investments as well as cash flow
8. Process should provide a check on bias

PAR would like to hear about changes that firms are making as a result of the study or which highlight best practices. Over the next year, we are collecting best practices from law firms to prepare follow up findings on the study, which we will share at our annual conference in Spring 2012. We will also highlight achievements here. Contact us with any questions or success stories.

On-Ramping Options

2010-12-13T17:56:00.002-05:00

For several years now, large law firms have been offering attorneys returning from maternity, adoption, or caregiver leave to ramp back up into their practice. These “on-ramping” policies, which allow for a gradual return to a full-time schedule or an easy introduction to a reduced hours schedule, have become popular and well-utilized.

PAR has been collecting best practices in the on-ramping area. Common features of these best practice programs include:
• Automatic (upon request) return from leave on individualized schedules. Attorneys can return on a part-time schedule for three months to one year without committing to being on a formal part-time schedule.
• Flexibility as to days/hours working and telecommuting options.
• Mentor pairings to guide the woman taking leave through winding down before leave and ramping back up upon return from leave.
• Parents’ affinity groups to deal with the day-to-day problems and issues of being working parents.

Two PAR member firms have found ways to embrace the issue of work/life balance for new parents and put together low-cost, highly effective programs. McCarthy Tétrault LLP, which has had an on-ramping program in place for almost five years, observed that it was often challenging for women to know how to ramp down their practice, remain in touch during their leave, and get back into the game. The firm provides a “maternity leave buddy” from the same practice area to give women someone to talk with about issues and concerns. The maternity leave buddy can also serve as a liaison while the mother is on leave. The firm created a maternity leave “toolkit” with tips tailored to the individual to help them both as new mothers and to give them guidance on how to return to work. Plus, as a small gesture intended to say “we’re thinking about you,” they send every new mother a spa certificate—according to the firm, this small gesture has been very popular and very successful. Next, McCarthy Tétrault connects each woman with a network of other women who stay in touch while the new mother is on leave and help prepare her and the workplace for her return.

A unique aspect of the McCarthy Tétrault’s program is their “parental support program” to deal with the problems and issues of new parents re-entering the workplace while simultaneously caring for a new baby. The program provides six sessions of coaching and therapy to deal with home issues, and all sessions are confidential. Returning mothers and fathers can go by themselves or with their partner, and although McCarthy Tétrault suggests they have two sessions pre-baby, two while on leave, and two upon return, the exact format is left up to the woman.

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP also provides a model best practice program. Orrick has a comprehensive program designed to retain women. Their program includes (1) a progressive return to work policy (highlighted below), (2) a program to remain connected to attorneys who choose to exit the workforce for a period of time following the birth or adoption of a child including access to firm training programs, pro bono work, and other temporary assignments, and (3) a Parents’ Forum for parents of young children adjusting to the demands of balancing work and family obligations. In addition, Orrick has an internal career coaching program. A career coach reaches out to those going out on and returning from leave to provide information on leave, the on-ramping program, and the options upon return from leave.

Orrick’s “Progressive Return” program provides attorneys with up to one year from the start of maternity leave to have reduced hours upon request. At the end of the return period, the lawyer may either ask to be on a permanent part-time schedule or return to full-time. The firm has found the following results from the program, which has been in place for just over three years:

1. The majority of women taking maternity or adoption leave have taken advantage of the program,
2. The number of attorneys on the firm’s Alternative Work Arrangements program (partner-track reduced hours program) has increased thus helping de-stigmatize part-time status,
3. Positive feedback from  program participants about both the psychological and concrete  benefits of having time to assess the appropriateness of a part-time  schedule once back to work rather than trying to imagine  what might work best while still immersed in being at home (the benefit of “trying out” part-time), and
4. The percentage of women resigning from the firm at the end of their maternity leave (not returning from leave) has markedly decreased.

On-ramping programs, which help attorneys smoothly transition into and out of maternity or adoption leave, are “low hanging fruit” for improving attorney retention. If your firm or law department has a best practice to share, we would love to hear from you. Please email us.

Wilmer Hale's Success with Part-Time Lawyers

2010-11-23T13:10:00.002-05:00

Wilmer Hale announced its new partners for 2011 last week. The big news: 8 of the 11 new partners are female; that’s 73%, and they’re all equity partners at Wilmer Hale. The firm will certainly feature prominently in PAR’s roundup of gender composition of new partners when we compile the data in the spring.

What’s their secret to retaining so many women in their pipeline so that they can elevate so many to equity partnership? In an interview with ALM’s Vivia Chen, co-managing partner Bill Perlstein said there was no decision to increase the number of women partners. He stated that the firm starts with a large number of candidates and the partnership selection committee does a careful review. When Vivia pressed Bill to give a reason, he said that the firm has a good part-time policy, and has 13 part-time partners: ten women and three men. He said one of the new partners is part-time and added, “Part-time partners have worked well here.” Another example of the firm’s flexibility: one of the newly elevated full-time partners stated that she usually works one day a week from home, and that the firm’s attitude toward flexibility made it easy for her to stay. She stated, “I don’t feel I’m fighting the system here.”

Wilmer Hale’s partnership elevations provide further proof that flexibility and reduced hours schedules work at both the associate and partnership levels. As we discussed in our report, Reduced Hours, Full Success: Part-Time Partners in U.S. Law Firms, a lot of firms are doing it right when it comes to retaining top talent by offering flexibility. While we still have a long way to go, with so few women equity partners nationwide, Wilmer Hale’s announcement this week shows that if firms offer the right policies and culture, their retention efforts pay off and the number of their female partners increases.

Walmart Implements Diversity & Flexibility Connection Best Practices

2010-11-08T14:33:00.001-05:00

Walmart’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel Jeff Gearhart recently updated the company’s outside counsel guidelines to reflect the best practice recommendations of the PAR Diversity & Flexibility Connection. The Diversity & Flexibility Connection is an ongoing discussion between prominent general counsels and law firm chairs on the retention of diverse attorneys through the inclusion of an effective work/life program. Walmart has taken a leadership position by including the following in their outside counsel guidelines:

1. Nonstigmatized flexible work: all external firms are to implement flex-time policies, or obtain a waiver, by February 1, 2011 to promote retention, prevent loss of institutional knowledge, and create a more balanced and inclusive work environment.
2. Referring work to reduced hours attorneys: firms will be including at least one partner working a flex-time schedule as a candidate for Walmart relationship partner.
3. Origination credit: firms will annually certify that that the Walmart relationship partners have received origination credit. This guideline is also a best practice recommendation of the PAR/MCCA study on partner compensation.

The Diversity & Flexibility Connection was designed to facilitate a conversation about how in-house and outside counsel could work together more effectively to support balanced hours programs, with the ultimate goal of making the legal profession more inclusive.

As the biggest company in the world, Walmart’s guidelines will likely lead to positive changes in many law firms. With the inclusion of work/life initiatives in firms’ diversity programs, more women will be able to take advantage of nonstigmatized flexible work as a viable career option.

Utah Women Lawyers Push Change

2010-11-03T11:03:00.001-04:00

The new report from the Women Lawyers of Utah is gaining a lot of attention (here, here, here, and here). Indeed, many of the findings are headline-worthy, including that only 23% of the lawyers in Utah are female, only 11% of partners are female, 23% of women lawyers feel they have been treated unfairly, and 10% say they have been sexually harassed.

One fact that isn’t making headlines is the energy Utah is showing for improving the profession to eliminate the barriers women lawyers face. As Cynthia Calvert has noted, the survey was supported by the Utah State Bar and leading Utah law firms, and it had a more than 50% response rate despite the length of the survey. (Disclosure: PAR was involved in the initiative.) In addition, the symposia that were held to discuss the survey findings drew large audiences, including leaders of the bar. With such widespread support, change certainly seems possible.

The path toward change was illuminated by the numerous and excellent best practices in the report. In fact, the report should be read by everyone, regardless of geographic location, just for the best practices if nothing else. They are practical, detailed and usable; there can be no hand wringing about not being able to do anything about the situation.

When the Stay-Home Parent Wants to Go Back to Work

2010-10-08T15:28:00.002-04:00

This is a re-post (with permission) of The Careerist's blog on returning to work. PAR's Director of Special Projects, Linda Marks, served as guest blogger.

Question from a reader:

How do lawyers with a few years of legal experience reenter the job market after taking time off to raise their families?

After over a decade's leave, several geographical moves (and several bar exams as well), and a stint of work in the legal department of a large national health insurance company, I am once again attempting to reenter the job market. I have been looking at an array of Internet postings: government, private law firms, public interest, and nonprofits, and so far have had very few responses. I suspect that my long leave may be what screens me out.

Sincerely,

MJ

Dear MJ:

You are not alone in wanting to on-ramp after taking a career break--and your experience of getting few responses is not surprising.

The most important advice we can give you is to network, network, network. When an attorney with a resume gap applies for a job, it’s hard to get past the screeners. That’s why networking is crucial.

How good is your network now? Are you in touch with people you’ve worked with in the past, those with whom you attended law school? Are you on LinkedIn? Don’t overlook the parents and neighbors you’ve met while you’ve been raising your family.

Go through your list and select the five people you feel most comfortable talking to. Figure out what you’d like from them. (Start with friends or family; it will be a lot easier.) Then, ask if they’d meet with you. Tell them: “I’ve decided to reenter the workforce, and I’m exploring estate planning. Would you be willing to meet with me for 15 minutes about how you got into the field?” Reassure them that you’re not asking them for a job, just information.

It’s hard to on-ramp on your own, so you might want to look into programs for people who want to rejoin the job market. Our Hastings Opting Back In program is a national telephone coaching group for attorneys who have left law for a year or more and want to return to practice. You can also check out the reentry workshops offered by Pace University Law School, the attorney reentry program of American University, Washington School of Law, and the iRelaunch programs offered by the authors of Back on the Career Track.

We’ve had women in our program who were out of work for up to 20 years find employment by networking. One is now the manager of legal affairs for a California company, who joined the group in late January 2009. Here's what she says:

Mid-summer, I was landing bona fide interviews and had a lot of people looking out for me, or introducing me to more people. . . . I secured (my current job) by networking. . . I had some nice exchanges with the president of the company and connected with him through LinkedIn in 2009. Because of tenacity and sheer desperation at the beginning of 2010, I just gave key people in my "LinkedIn" network a heads-up that I was still on the market. Oh boy, did I love to hear someone say, "I'm glad to hear you are still searching. . . . Let's talk."
Her point: "No one knows how you are doing unless you tell them."

Many people are afraid of networking because they think of it as begging or acting like a used car salesman. But if you do it right, it’s more about listening than talking--and more about giving than taking. Remember to build rapport with each person you meet and keep good records of your contacts. And send thank-you notes.

Yes, reentering the workforce is anything but fast and easy. But being super-determined and focused will go a long way.

Linda Marks can be reached at marksl@uchastings.edu.

Exciting Staff Changes at PAR

2010-09-28T16:03:00.004-04:00

PAR has recently enhanced its research and service capabilities with the addition of two new staff members. Penelope Huang, Ph.D., has joined PAR as Research Sociologist and Jessica Natkin, J.D., is the new Director of Programs. With the addition of Penny and Jessica to our staff, PAR will be able to push the boundaries of academic-quality research and to link that research with direct solutions for our members and the legal community.

We are also pleased to announce that Manar Morales has been promoted to Deputy Executive Director of PAR. In her new role, Manar will be overseeing all of PAR’s operations and programs.

Joan C. Williams, as PAR’s Director, will continue to oversee the organization and its research.

Cynthia Thomas Calvert, PAR’s Co-Founder, is stepping down from her day-to-day duties in order to found her own independent consulting practice, CT Calvert & Associates. She will be offering the kind of in-depth consulting that organizations often need to carry through on their plans for flexibility and the advancement of women lawyers. Cynthia will retain her relationship with PAR as Co-Founder and Senior Adviser.

Learn more about Penny, Jessica, Manar, and Cynthia.

For more information on PAR and our upcoming events, please visit www.attorneyretention.org.

“Opting Back In” National Telephone Coaching Group: For attorneys who want to return to law

2010-09-17T13:05:00.000-04:00

REGISTER NOW! Continuing program with openings starting in October

If you’re an attorney who left law to care for your family and want to return to legal practice, register now for the Opting Back In telephone coaching group. Participants from locations around the country call in to a single teleconference bridge line at a regular day and time and receive professional coaching from Ellen Ostrow of Lawyers Life Coach LLC and Linda Marks of the Center for WorkLife Law at UC Hastings College of the law on how to craft and implement return-to-work plans. Each group of up to 10 participants meets twice a month with occasional “bonus” calls.

It’s hard to “on-ramp” on your own. Being part of a group connects you with other attorneys facing similar challenges; helps you set up and expand your network; and provides you with the support, encouragement and resources you need to take what now seems like a daunting process and break it down into manageable pieces.

For more information, see the Project for Attorney Retention Opting Back In web page. There’s a link to the fax- or scan-and email-back registration form at the bottom of that page. Or contact Linda Marks at marksl@uchastings.edu, 415-581-8826.

NEXT MEETINGS:
“First Monday” group (Meets first and third Mondays of each month from 9:30 – 11:00 a.m. Pacific, 12:30 – 2:00 Eastern):
October 4 and 18
November 1 and 15

“Second Monday” group (Meets second and fourth Mondays of each month from 9:30 – 11:00 a.m. Pacific, 12:30 – 2:00 Eastern):
October 11 and 25
November 8 and 22

Maternity Leave Lessons from Small Business

2010-08-19T14:43:00.002-04:00

While large law firms have generally become more progressive with their policies for maternity leaves, adoption leaves, and paternity leaves, many small firms are just beginning to tackle these issues. We often hear from lawyers at small firms that they were the first in their firms to take maternity leave. A recent New York Times article (“Taking a Positive Approach to an Employee’s Maternity Leave”) highlights best practices for small business maternity leaves. This article provides a good reference for small firms to help smooth the transition into and out of maternity and other extended leaves. Highlights include:

1. Communicate openly: Make sure that your employees understand that there are many life events that take people out of the office for extended periods of time. It’s best to plan for them.
2. Involve your employee: Ask the employee with the upcoming leave to prepare a transition memo to help with re-assigning work. Also plan for how to handle the transition back to work—this is even more important.
3. Consider flexible schedules: If your firm is unable to offer paid leave, offer flexibility as an attractive alternative. Many large law firms are now offering “on-ramping” programs, which allow for reduced hours for a certain period of time upon returning from leave. This could be a nice addition for the small firm as well.
4. Don’t fret too much about inconsistency: Because everyone knows each other in a small firm, more room typically exists for giving people what they need, without getting overly focused on consistency. The key is to be sensitive enough to people’s on-going needs—whatever the reason—that everyone feels that they could get flexibility or leave when they really need it. Of course, you need to keep employment laws in mind.

Both new mothers and new fathers want to take leave. Others need to take leave due to illness and family care responsibilities. Small firms will need to put flexible, transparent policies into place to remain competitive in today’s evolving workplace.

The Times Opts Out of the "Opt Out" Narrative

2010-08-17T19:27:00.000-04:00

The New York Times, for forty years, ran one story after another quoting women saying they had opted out of the workforce after they had children, according to a 2006 report by the Center for WorkLife Law. The most famous was Lisa Belkin's 2003 New York Times Magazine story, "The Opt Out Revolution."

Now there's change a-brewing on the business page. Last week, David Leonhardt's "A Labor Market Punishing to Mothers" focused not on mothers' choices but on the ways the labor market pushes mothers out of good jobs. Leonhardt pointed out that none of the last three women nominated for the Supreme Court had children. Though this observation could easily have morphed into yet another lament about mothers opting out, Leonhardt struck a different note, arguing that the labor market is structured in ways that artificially penalize mothers. "Our economy extracts a terribly steep price for any time away from work--in both pay and promotions," he writes.

True that. I was once at an event where a woman graduate of Harvard Law School was told that her chances of getting a job were so slim that no recruiter would accept her as a client. What heinous act had made her so unemployable? Taking two years off to care for her son. A 2004 study by Stephen Rose and Heidi Hartman found that American women who took one year off lost 20% of their lifetime earnings, while women who took off two to three years lost 30%. These plummets in women's earnings seem out of proportion to any objective deterioration in human capital.

They are driven instead by what social scientists call the flexibility stigma. That's the stigma triggered when a worker signals a need for workplace flexibility, including not only career breaks but also part-time work. Penalties for part-time work in the U.S., again, are artificially high, seven times higher than in Sweden and twice as high as in the U.K., according to Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyers. These penalties play a major role in denying women equal pay, according to a report by the Joint Economic Committee issued last April. One quarter of employed women usually work part time, and part-time workers face steep earnings penalties. In retail jobs, part-timers receive only 58 cents for every dollar earned by full-timers.

The flexibility stigma affects anyone, male or female, who is unable or unwilling to work in the employment pattern traditional of male breadwinners. Kudos to Leonhardt helping the Times opt out of the opt out narrative.

Do In-House Lawyers Have Better Work/Life Balance?

2010-08-07T14:52:00.003-04:00

PAR released its groundbreaking study on work/life balance for in-house attorneys, Better on Balance? The Corporate Counsel Work/Life Report, back in 2003. That report focused on the defining the types of work schedules that in-house attorneys use successfully to find work/life balance, offering best practices, and testing the perception of many law firm partners that corporate counsel would not want to work with law firm attorneys who were working part-time.

In the report, we found that full time in-house often meant a 50-hour workweek and that many attorneys found balance on that schedule. In addition, the study showed a variety of alternative work arrangements being utilized, but part-time lawyers still felt stigmatized and some lawyer trying to telecommute found it challenging. Lastly, law firms’ assumption that clients will not work with part-time lawyers did not hold true.

Recently, we’ve been talking to the General Counsel who are part of the Diversity & Flexibility Connection, and we started to wonder what has changed with so much focus on retention of women through flexibility. With the Great Recession and cutbacks, more advancement for women in the profession, and a spotlight on diversity, we thought it was time to re-visit the issue of work/life balance for in-house lawyers.

PAR is launching a new research study focusing on work/life issues particular to in-house counsel. We are currently holding focus groups to collect the experiences and opinions of corporate counsel across the country. Results from the focus groups will be used in the development of a large-scale, national survey study.

PAR is seeking sponsors for the Corporate Counsel Project. For more information or to participate in a focus group in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Denver, or Washington DC, please contact us.

Compensation Survey of Lawyers Finds Deep Dissatisfaction Among Women Partners, Who Make 22% Less Than Men

2010-07-07T11:07:00.002-04:00

PAR and MCCA released a report today of its compensation survey of women partners. The report, New Millennium, Same Glass Ceiling? The Impact of Law Firm Compensation Systems on Women, is available on PAR's website.

The press release:

SAN FRANCISCO, July 7, 2010: A report released today by the Project for Attorney Retention and the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, based on a survey of nearly 700 women law firm partners, concludes that existing compensation systems for lawyers open the door to gender bias because they contain tremendous subjectivity, lack transparency, and because so much of the negotiation surrounding salaries takes place out of sight.

The report raises doubts about the conventional wisdom that women’s family responsibilities and lack of time for rainmaking are the key reasons why women partners make 22% less than men.

The report finds low levels of satisfaction among women with law firm compensation. Fewer than half the women equity partners and roughly one-third of women income- and minority-partners are satisfied with their compensation. An earlier study, which also found roughly half of women lawyers satisfied with their compensation, found that nearly three-quarters of men were.

The survey tapped a deep vein of anger, evidenced by comments submitted online, over compensation issues among women law partners. “We knew there was a compensation gap, but we were surprised to find such intense dissatisfaction,” said Joan C. Williams, Director of the Project for Attorney Retention.

One woman partner said: “I was the highest paid woman in my office, and my compensation was about 50% less than any… male partner in my department in my office. “ Another reported: “It is hard to say that gender is not a factor, when the median compensation for male partners is almost double that of female partners in my department, which is the largest department in a large international law firm. Once bonuses (which are confidential) are factored in, it is my informed belief that women partners in my practice group make less than half as much as the male partners.”

Roughly one-third of the women surveyed reported having been bullied, threatened or intimidated out of origination credit, a key factor in setting compensation. More than half the women reported being denied their fair share of origination credit.

Many survey respondents reported a lack of opportunities to participate in, or to benefit from their participation in, client pitches. Of the women surveyed, over 70% of minority income partners, 58% of minority equity partners, and slightly lower percentages of white partners, reported that they had participated in client pitches that yielded work for their firms—but that they were excluded when the time came to do the work.

Additionally, the survey found that women, who make up 16% of equity partners nationwide, are underrepresented or completely missing from their firms’ compensation committees. One-fifth of the women surveyed reported that no women sit on such committees; one-half of the respondents indicated one woman on the relevant committee. The absence of minority women on the relevant committee was even starker.

“With few women on compensation committees and in top management positions, women law firm partners’ ability to influence compensation decisions and address salary differentials is limited,“ said Veta Richardson, MCCA Executive Director. “This report confirms prior MCCA findings that women and people of color are less likely to feel fully informed about the rules regarding what it takes to advance and achieve a higher compensation for their work.”

The report details recommendations that law firms can use to address the problems identified in the study. “Firms can address many of women’s concerns by adopting practices already recommended, for purely business reasons, by law firm consultants who specialize in compensation,” said Williams. In addition, the report recommends instituting best practices to control for implicit bias and ending the practice of allowing originating attorneys to pass on origination credit without input from clients or their firms, among other practices.

Preliminary results of the survey were released this spring. An executive summary and the full report, New Millennium, Same Glass Ceiling? The Impact of Law Firm Compensation Systems on Women, written by Joan C. Williams and Veta T. Richardson, is available at www.attorneyretention.org, and will be published in the Hastings Law Journal this winter. A companion report titled Sustaining Pathways to Diversity – A Survey of Women Partners on Law Firm Compensation and Recommended Approaches for a More Equitable Playing Field is also being developed by MCCA, PAR, and the ABA Commission on Women, and is expected to be available later this summer.

The Project for Attorney Retention helps organizations work towards retention and advancement of women lawyers, and better work-life balance for all lawyers. An initiative of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, PAR invented the modern part-time policy now used in many law firms. PAR’s Diversity and Flexibility Connection brings law firm chairs and general counsel together to implement best practices to level the playing field in the legal profession. PAR’s influential reports include studies of part-time partners, work-life issues in law firms, work-life issues facing in-house lawyers, and the impact of law firm compensation systems on women. Other PAR initiatives include the Leadership Academy for Women (for law-firm partners) and the Opting Back In Program (for returning lawyers).For more information, see www.attorneyretention.org.

Joan C. Williams is Distinguished Professor of Law at Hastings College of the Law and co-founder and director of the Center for WorkLife Law, based at Hastings. Her latest book, Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter, will be published by Harvard later this year.

The MCCA advocates for the expanded hiring, promotion, and retention of minority lawyers in corporate legal departments and the law firms that serve them. MCCA furthers its mission by publishing research on achieving diversity and best practices in the legal profession, honoring innovative diversity programs with its Employer of Choice and Thomas L. Sager awards, and assisting diverse law students through the Lloyd M. Johnson, Jr. Scholarship Program. MCCA’s work has been recognized with awards from the National Minority Business Council, Inc., the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the National LGBT Bar Association, and the Association of Corporate Counsel. For more information, see www.mcca.com.

Veta T. Richardson is the Executive Director of MCCA, CEO of Diversity & the Bar, and a member of the Advisory Council of Women Business Executives for CapitalOne.

# # #

Keshet Study of Business Development

2010-05-25T14:12:00.002-04:00

Harry Keshet, a researcher and consultant who has previously worked with the National Association of Women Lawyers, is in the midst of a study of business development that promises to be a significant resource for the legal profession. He is collecting data about business development opportunities, resources, experiences, and results, and will analyze the data by gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. More information is available here.

Ever feel like the business generation playing field wasn't quite level? Harry's study is going to tell us if that is true, and just how tilted it is for different groups of lawyers.

Ever want to know what types of business development activities are most effective for different types of lawyers and lawyers in different practice areas? This study will tell us that, too.

Of course, the study needs your participation. The survey takes about 15 minutes to complete and can be found here. All lawyers are encouraged to participate.

Please take a few minutes to help this worthy endeavor, and then a couple more to email your colleagues and ask them to do the same. Thanks.

Update to New Partners 2010 Report: Two More Firms Make the "Best" List

2010-05-21T20:28:00.002-04:00

We recently updated our report on the gender composition of the new partner classes of various law firms, and the news continues to be encouraging. We included the 2010 data for Debevoise & Plimpton and Drinker Biddle, and both made our "Best" list for promoting new partner classes that are 50% or more female. From the revised press release:

The Best: Sullivan and Cromwell (100% female); Munger Tolles (100%); Weil, Gotshal (100%); Mayer Brown (75%); Seyfarth Shaw (75%); Bingham McCutcheon (71%); Proskauer Rose (67%); WilmerHale (63%); Beveridge & Diamond (60%); Winston & Strawn (60%); Drinker Biddle (57%); Jackson Lewis (56%); Latham & Watkins (55%); Greenberg Traurig (54%); Akin Gump (50%); Debevoise & Plimpton (50%); DLA Piper (50%); Duane Morris (50%); Epstein Becker & Green (50%); Fenwick & West (50%); King & Spalding (50%); Parker Poe (50%); Shook Hardy (50%); Sidley Austin (50%); and Zuckerman Spaeder (50%).

That brings the total number of "best" firms to 25 -- very impressive. The complete release can be found here.

Other changes included the inclusion of Kutak Rock to the list and the addition of data for past years for several firms. Our thanks to everyone who has helped our data gathering efforts.

Women Lawyers Advance in New Partner Classes

2010-04-19T17:23:00.003-04:00

34% of New Partners are Female, Compared to 28% in 2009

The economy may be looking up, at least for the women lawyers in the 2010 new partner classes. According to a survey released today by the Project for Attorney Retention (PAR), law firms made significant advances in retaining and promoting their women lawyers: 23 firms made new partner classes that were 50% or more female, and 34% of the new partners are female, compared to 28% of the new partners in 2009.

Not all of the news was good, however: 14 firms had all-male classes.

The Best: Sullivan and Cromwell (100% female); Munger Tolles (100%); Weil, Gotshal (100%); Mayer Brown (75%); Seyfarth Shaw (75%); Bingham McCutcheon (71%); Proskauer Rose (67%); WilmerHale (63%); Beveridge & Diamond (60%); Winston & Strawn (60%); Jackson Lewis (56%); Latham & Watkins (55%); Greenberg Traurig (54%); Akin Gump (50%); DLA Piper (50%); Duane Morris (50%); Epstein Becker & Green (50%); Fenwick & West (50%); King & Spalding (50%); Parker Poe (50%); Shook Hardy (50%); Sidley Austin (50%); and Zuckerman Spaeder (50%).

Honorable mentions: Littler Mendelson (46%); Baker & Daniels (44%); Dorsey & Whitney (44%); Thompson Hine (43%); Dickstein Shapiro (40%); Hogan & Hartson (40%); Kirkland & Ellis (40%); Paul Weiss (40%); and Schiff Hardin (40%).

The Worst: None of the following firms made a female partner this year (note: all made at least two U.S. partners): Boies Schiller; Cleary Gottlieb; Crowell & Moring; Kilpatrick Stockton; Lowenstein Sandler; Luce Forward; Milbank; Pepper Hamilton; Quinn Emanuel; Shearman & Sterling; Squire Sanders; Steptoe & Johnson; Wachtell; and Wiley Rein.

Not much better: Foley & Lardner (8%); Locke Lord (13%); Patton Boggs (13%); Nixon Peabody (14%); Fish & Richardson (17%); Fulbright & Jaworski (17%); McGuire Woods (17%); Skadden (17%); and Husch Blackwell (19%).

The complete chart is available on PAR's web site.

“The increase in the number of women promoted to partner is heartening,” said Cynthia Thomas Calvert, PAR’s Director of Research. “But two factors indicate that celebration would be premature: first, the overall number of women partners in law firms remains low, at approximately 19%, and second, this survey made no distinction between equity and nonequity partnership, and other studies have shown that an even lower percentage of equity partners are female.”

Firms were chosen for this survey based on inclusion in prior years’ surveys, firm size, reputation and availability of information. Fifteen new firms were added to those surveyed last year, for a total of 118 firms. The percentage of females in the overall 2010 class was calculated without the new firms to allow an accurate comparison with the percentage of females in the overall 2009 class. As in prior years, information is included only for the firms’ U.S. offices. Many of the firms noted as being “the best” or “honorable mentions” are members of the Project for Attorney Retention: Beveridge & Diamond; Fenwick & West; Munger Tolles; Shook Hardy; Dickstein Shapiro; DLA Piper; Hogan & Hartson; Jackson Lewis; Latham & Watkins; Mayer Brown; Schiff Hardin; and Sidley Austin. This reflects those firms’ commitment to advancing women lawyers rather than favoritism on our part.

Two 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. Crowell & Moring, Luce Forward, Cleary Gottlieb, Kilpatrick Stockton, Quinn Emanuel, and Wiley Rein have been notably more successful in the past.

Finally, a look back to 2009 is in order. Firms elect their new partners at different times of the year, and several firms’ new partner classes for 2009 were announced after our survey results were published. Had that not been so, we would have noted the following: Coblentz would have earned a “Best” rating because all three of its new partners were female; Debevoise would also have been labeled “Best” because its only new partner was female; Covington and Burling’s new class was 44% female; Skadden’s was 40% female; Davis Polk would have been among “The Worst” because none of its three new partners were female; and Ballard Spahr (14% female) and Drinker Biddle (17%) would have been labeled “not much better.”

PAR wishes to thank Jessie Kornberg, Executive Director and Vice-President of Ms. JD, and Linda Bray Chanow, Executive Director of the Center for Women in Law, for their assistance with this survey.

See the chart here.

Colorado Campaign for Inclusive Excellence

2010-03-04T12:29:00.002-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of speaking in Denver at the public unveiling of the Denver-specific findings of the Part-Time Partners report. PAR and the Colorado Women's Bar Association and Bar Association Foundation worked jointly on the study of part-time partners, with very interesting results.

While in Denver, I learned about the Colorado Campaign for Inclusive Excellence -- a fascinating organization that is taking research about diversity in the legal profession and using it to create practical steps to make legal workplaces truly inclusive. As I was listening to its executive director, Kathleen Nalty, it struck me that CCIE is really a laboratory for creating and testing win-win approaches to diversity and flexibility. Here are some of its initiatives: an inclusiveness program that is being piloted at law firms, government legal offices, and corporate law departments in Denver; a manual that provides everything a law firm needs to know to undertake an inclusiveness initiative; and a Dean's Council that brings together leaders from all facets of the legal profession. An ABA Journal article recently featured Nalty and CCIE.

If you know PAR, you know why we applaud CCIE's work. For more than a decade, PAR has been developing practical, research- and business-based solutions to the issue of retaining and advancing women lawyers. Like CCIE, moving from words to action is the cornerstone of our work.

CCIE is hosting the must-attend 2010 Rocky Mountain Legal Diversity Summit on March 16. Here's just a taste of cutting edge topics: "The Impact of Privilege on Inclusiveness," "Being Comfortable with Discomfort: How to Start a Diversity Dialogue," "Roadblocks to Inclusion: What You Don't Know Might Surprise You," and "Change Your Attitude: Culture Shift to Support a Balanced Hours Environment." National experts from the ABA, MCCA, Catalyst and others will present. I hope you'll attend.

Putting the Equity Back in "Equity Partnership"

2010-02-26T13:38:00.003-05:00

We have been following the debate over firms reporting numbers of equity and nonequity partners. Now the debate has erupted into a battle, with NALP caught in the crossfire. (For background, read Vivia Chen's article in The American Lawyer, Above the Law's take, and Business Insider's view.)

It appears that there are two issues: 1) reporting by firms of how many partners they have, broken down into "equity" and "nonequity" categories; and 2) the definition of "equity." The definition is an issue because some firms use the "equity" label for partners whose compensation is mostly or completely fixed and not based on a share of profits.

Everyone gets why organizations like PAR, MCCA, and NAWL want accurate information about how many partners in firms are in the top ranks, having equity and sharing in profits. Law students and lawyers looking for another firm also have obvious interests in knowing what their partnership prospects would be at a particular firm. But what are the law firms' reasons for not wanting to provide the information, and is there some way to accommodate the interests of each side?

One of the firms’ stated reasons for their reluctance (and, of course, we know that not all firms share the same reasons) is that for small offices, it may be possible for others to figure out who are the nonequity partners, thus violating those partners’ privacy, and perhaps causing clients to question their competence or billing rates. A solution for this problem has been suggested: ask firms to report the number of nonequity partners combined with the numbers of other salaried lawyers (counsel, associates) rather than as their own category, to make identification more difficult. While that would not provide all the information sought by researchers, award bestowers, and job seekers, it would provide at least the most important information regarding equity partners.

Another of the firms’ stated reasons is business privacy, that it is their own business how they compensate their partners. This is true and they should be able to keep this information private if they wish. As with anyone who asserts privacy, however, there may be lost opportunities (or costs) associated with keeping the curtain closed. One loss may be the inability to report diversity numbers to groups that track firms’ progress toward inclusiveness. This in turn may make firms less attractive to job seekers, particularly minority job seekers. In the long run, the cost may be felt in terms of a diminished competitiveness in the war for talent.

The diminished competitiveness could actually be felt sooner if organizations begin publishing data on which firms are providing accurate equity partner data.

An additional effect of publication could be a leveling of the playing field: right now, firms that have only one type of partner -- equity partners whose compensation is based on profit sharing -- may be at a competitive disadvantage with respect to reported numbers of diverse partners. To the extent that other firms have diverse partners in their nonequity or "equity in name only" ranks, they appear more diverse than perhaps they are when they report equity and nonequity partners as a combined number or fail to distinguish between equity partners who are paid mostly a fixed amount and those who are paid mostly from profits. If a list of "transparent" firms becomes publicly available, look for one-tier firms to rush to get listed.

Diversity and Flexibility Connection Conference: 10/29

2009-10-01T10:38:00.003-04:00

Now is the time to sign up for PAR's Diversity and Flexibility Conference on October 29, 2009 in Washington, D.C. Only 26 seats remain. Registration information is available on PAR's website.

An all-star line up of general counsel and law firm chairs will discuss the results of their two days of meetings. In addition, PAR will present its Connection best practices report, and its Flex Success Award to a successful part-time partner at a PAR member firm.

More information, from the invitation:

Meet the leaders -- the key general counsel and law firm chairs who are participating in PAR’s Diversity & Flexibility Connection -- at a special one-day conference. Hear their perspectives on how diversity and flexibility impact client relationships, legal budgets and business development. Network and share your firm’s experiences.

The Connection brought together twelve general counsel and twelve law firm chairs for two meetings where they had frank discussions on the connection between work/life strategies and diversity objectives. This conference will present the best practices and action steps for law departments and law firms that were generated at these meetings.

For PAR members only: Included in the price of your conference ticket will be an invitation to a reception the night before the conference hosted by Dickstein Shapiro LLP exclusively for PAR members who are attending the conference, general counsel and law firm chairs who are participating in the Connection and speakers.

Speakers:

Michele Coleman Mayes, VP and General Counsel, Allstate Insurance
James Potter, SVP, General Counsel and Secretary, Del Monte Foods Company
Thomas Sager, SVP and General Counsel, DuPont Company
Douglas G. Scrivner, General Counsel & Compliance Officer, Accenture
Jeffrey Gearhart, EVP and General Counsel, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Catherine A. Lamboley, SVP, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary (ret.), Shell Oil
Teri Plummer McClure, SVP of Legal, Compliance and Public Affairs, General Counsel and Secretary, United Parcel Service
Thomas Milch, Chair, Arnold & Porter LLP
Gordon Davidson, Chair, Fenwick & West LLP
Michael Nannes, Chair/Firmwide Managing Partner, Dickstein Shapiro LLP
Robert Riley, Chair, Schiff Hardin LLP
Steven Lowenthal, Chair, Farella Braun + Martel LLP
Thomas Cole, Chair, Executive Committee, Sidley Austin LLP
Elliott Portnoy, Chair, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, LLP
Keith C. Wetmore, Chair, Morrison & Foerster LLP
Steven B. Pfeiffer, Chair, Executive Committee, Fulbright & Jaworski LLP

Thoughts on being a "Legal Rebel"

2009-09-29T18:10:00.002-04:00

Many thanks to the ABA Journal for naming me a "Legal Rebel." I admit it is a little embarrassing (am I really a rebel? And surely the video did not have to freeze on that awful picture, and now everyone knows how messy my office gets when I'm writing!), but also a little pleasing (after ten years of working on the advancement of women lawyers and work/life issues, it is nice to know someone is listening).

Before my Rebel interview, I planned all sorts of things I wanted to say about PAR. Unfortunately, the interview lasted about five minutes and focused on just a couple of issues and not on the organization itself. So, here are three things I wish I could have said in my interview:

1. PAR has changed considerably from its early days. Initially, PAR was just Joan Williams and me in the District of Columbia, with a little money from the Sloan Foundation and a desire to finally solve the issue of why women weren't advancing more rapidly in law firms. Today, there are six of us with the addition of Manar Morales, Natalie Hiott-Levine, Linda Marks, and Linda Chanow -- all fabulously talented and treasured colleagues. We now have a full national reach and a budget that is about ten times bigger than our first. Our research has answered the question why women lawyers are not advancing as rapidly as they should, and we have developed and continue to develop practical solutions for women lawyers, law firms, and corporate law departments to use to help women lawyers achieve parity.

2. One thing about PAR that hasn't changed: Joan Williams remains one of the most fascinating people I've ever met. She is brilliant, and she has single-handedly moved mountains to improve the workplace for women. She changes lives -- just listen to her talk or read something she has written and see for yourself. Sharing the Director position with her at PAR has been amazing.

3. PAR has had considerable success helping lawyers and legal employers to get ahead through nonstigmatized reduced hours work and action steps to develop and promote women lawyers. We are often described as "nationally recognized experts" and a "leading voice," and I sometimes reflect on why we have been so influential. I have decided it comes down to three things: 1) our work is based on research, both our own and others'; 2) we work with all stakeholders -- lawyers, law firms/legal departments, and clients; and 3) we create practical, workable, business-based solutions. I don't think we can overlook good communication skills and a lot of long hours, but the content has to be there first.

Of course, there is a lot more I wish I could have said -- things about some of PAR's projects, the law firms and law departments that have joined PAR, and where I think PAR is headed in the future. Those may appear in future editions of this blog. In the meantime, I'm going to go be a little rebellious.

--Cynthia

Part-Time Partners, Full Success: PAR Releases New Study

2009-09-24T08:45:00.002-04:00

PAR has released its part-time partner report, "Reduced Hours, Full Success: Part-Time Partners in U.S. Law Firms. Here is the press release:

Part-Time Law Partners Succeed for Clients, Firms
New Study Shows Reduced Schedules No Bar to Financial Success

Throw away those preconceived ideas about part-time partners in law firms. The Project for Attorney Retention (PAR), a leading voice on work-life balance and women’s advancement in the law, releases a ground-breaking study showing that part-time partners are remarkably successful: they are highly responsive to their clients, generate significant revenue, and are active leaders and role models within their firms. “A decade ago, firms typically took part-time lawyers off partnership track,” said PAR Co-Director Joan C. Williams. “Now, thanks to the efforts PAR and others to create non-stigmatized part-time programs, these lawyers became partners and this study shows the results: a win-win scenario for partners and their firms.”

“The conventional wisdom is that attorneys who cut back their hours cut back their careers.” said Cynthia Calvert, PAR’s co-director and one of the study’s authors. “We talked with many successful part-time partners for whom that wasn’t true.” The key findings challenge conventional wisdom about part-time lawyers:

•           Many respondents had significant books of business, and the majority reported spending as much or more time on business development as full-time partners;

•           Most respondents generate significant revenue, billing between 1200 and 1600 hours annually and pushing additional work down to associates;

•           Many hold leadership positions in their firms, including managing partner, executive committee member, practice group head, and members of high level committees; and

•           Client service is foremost, with the vast majority of respondents stating that they do whatever is necessary to be responsive and meet deadlines.

Clients of part-time partners are generally supportive, the study finds. “Wal-Mart has worked with part-time partners, and we support their flexible work arrangements,” said Jeff Gearhart, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. “We understand how important flexibility is to retention, and stable relationships with our outside counsel are good for our business. I hope that everyone reads this report – it will open their eyes.”

More than a hundred lawyers were interviewed in depth for the groundbreaking study. Study participants – who included 53 equity partners who work reduced hours – were asked about career history, firms, schedules, practices, clients, compensation, business development, colleagues, satisfaction, and personal lives. PAR also interviewed more than 30 women partners of color, working both full-time and part-time, as well as managing partners.

The study’s interviews with partners of color also yielded unexpected results: 26% of the partners of color were working part-time. Said study co-author Linda Bray Chanow, “The data demonstrates that partners of color experience significant work-life conflict. Unfortunately, we spoke with partners of color who felt that reducing their hours would negatively impact their careers at their firms. These women said that when part-time was stigmatized, participating was not a risk that they were willing to take, given the challenges they felt they already faced as partners of color.”

The report concludes with best practices for structuring part-time partnership, and guidance for part-time partners.

PAR, 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. For more information or to obtain a copy of the report, visit PAR’s website at www.pardc.org.

Survey of Women Law Firm Partners

2009-07-17T15:23:00.002-04:00

To All Women Law Firm Partners:

The three undersigned organizations are working together to examine the experiences of women law firm partners regarding business development, related compensation and partner evaluation practices with the goal of developing recommendations and best practices.

If you are a woman who is a partner in a law firm, please contact PAR for a link to the survey and ask all the women law firm partners in your network and to do the same. Your individual responses will remain confidential and anonymous and will be reported only in the aggregate.

We need to have your input and to hear about your views and experiences. So please help us out – it should take you only about 20-30 minutes to answer the questions.

Thank you,

Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA)
Project for Attorney Retention (PAR)
ABA Commission on Women in the Profession

Women Managing Partners

2009-07-10T13:49:00.002-04:00

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.

Highlights from the Report on NJ Women Lawyers

2009-05-15T11:55:00.002-04:00

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.

Economic Analysis of Balanced Hours vs. Layoffs

2009-03-19T14:10:00.002-04:00

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.

2009 New Partner Classes Stagnant for Women Lawyers

2009-02-24T09:27:00.002-05:00

Women make up 40% or more of the new partner classes at 23 major law firms,
but 14 firms fail to make any female partners

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.

PAR Conference: Advancing Women Lawyers in Turbulent Times

2009-01-30T13:07:00.004-05:00

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

9:30 Reduced Hours, Full Success? Interim Report on PAR's Part-Time Partner Study

Linda Chanow and Linda Marks, PAR

10:00 Strategies for Facilitating WorkLife Balance in a Faltering Economy

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

11:15 Break

11:30 This is How We Do It - Roundtable discussions on Facilitating WorkLife Balance

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.

12:30 Lunch, sponsored by Major, Lindsey & Africa

1:30 Eliminating Hidden Gender Bias in the Legal Workplace

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

2:45 Diversity & Flexibility Connection: The Law Department Experience

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

3:45 Break

4:00 How Law Firms Compensate Women Lawyers

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

4:50 Closing Remarks

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.

Article about part-time v. layoffs now available online

2009-01-10T12:40:00.002-05:00

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.

Valid objection to the reduced hours in lieu of layoffs proposal?

2009-01-08T22:05:00.002-05:00

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.

Looking more closely at the reduced hours v. layoffs proposal

2009-01-07T23:12:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, we acknowledged that PAR's suggestion that law firms reduce the hours of their associates in lieu of lay offs has its imperfections. We're going to disclose those, but first we would like to look at the objections raised by others thus far.

First, in the article in the National Law Journal about PAR's proposal (Cost-saving option for firms: reduced hours, by Karen Sloan, Jan. 05, 2009; subscription required), the chair of Dickstein Shapiro, Mike Nannes, was reported to have said that having associates work fewer hours doesn't provide the same level of savings as layoffs. The example given in the article is that it costs a firm less to have three associates billing 2000 hours each than to have four associates billing 1500 hours each because the firm must pay for office space and benefits for the additional reduced hours associate.

While we don't want to disagree with Mike, we want to take a minute to look behind the example. The rent cost doesn't strike us as being a compelling argument because the law firm is likely going to have to continue to pay for that office under its lease whether the office is occupied or not, at least in the near term. The benefits issue is harder to argue with; while some firms pro-rate benefits or have part-time lawyers pay a portion of their benefits, the trend at large law firms is to pay full benefits to part-time lawyers. But the fact that the firm would have to pay for the benefits package of the fourth retained associate is not the end of the matter; we need to take the next step and compare the cost of that benefits package and the costs associate with laying off the associate and later hiring and training a replacement when the economy improves. Given that it costs firms $200,000 - $500,000 to replace a mid-level associate, the firm is likely better off just paying the fourth associate's benefits.

The second objection was also raised in the article. Douglas Richardson, a consultant with Altman Weil, posits that clients may feel they are wasting their money if a large number of part-time associates rotate in and out of their matters. The clients would be concerned, he said, about whether they were paying to bring more associates up to speed because of the reduced hours structure.

This objection also has an answer. Many clients limit the number of lawyers they let bill on their matters, so having a large number of associates working on one matter is an unlikely staffing scenario. More to the point, layoffs are more likely to increase the number of lawyers working on matter -- if the associate who is working on a matter is laid off, he or she will have to be replaced. And if there is another round of layoffs... One of the reasons PAR has proposed reduced hours in lieu of layoffs is to maintain stability in client service by retaining the associates who are performing the work.

Richardson's second objection is dead on. He says that it would be hard to convince associates to reduce their hours because of the perception that part-time schedules are career killers. PAR has spent years researching the stigma associated with part-time schedules and its solutions. It is an uphill battle, and while we see progress, stigma is still a very real issue at most firms. Stigma can be reduced by the way the firm implements the reduced hours program, and by implementation of the best practices PAR has detailed in its reports and its book Solving the Part-Time Puzzle (NALP 2004). We will outline some of these steps in a later post as a handy reference for firms that are considering adopting PAR's proposal.

There is another objection that has not yet been raised that we think has some validity. We'll discuss that tomorrow.

More on reduced hours as an alternative to layoffs

2009-01-06T21:28:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, we summarized an article in the National Law Journal that examined PAR's recommendation that law firms consider having associates work part-time as an alternative to laying them off. (Cost-saving option for firms: reduced hours, by Karen Sloan, Jan. 05, 2009; subscription required.)

Essentially, PAR's idea is this: if a law firm or practice group is experiencing a shortage of billable work, it can project the number of attorney hours it expects to need and encourage associates to reduce their hours, with a commensurate reduction in compensation, to a level that matches the projected need. For example, a practice group may decide that for the next six months, it expects to have about 4300 billable hours of work. If the practice group has six associates, it may conclude that it needs to lay off two associates and keep four associates who will bill about 45 hours per week. The alternative would be for all six associates to remain with the firm and bill 30 hours per week and receive two-thirds of their salaries.

Why is the reduced hours alternative any better than layoffs? First, it allows the firm to keep associates it has worked to hire and train, and when the economy improves (we're optimists), these associates can ramp up their hours quickly and handle the additional work. If the firm lays off associates, the firm will have a lag time before it can handle a significant amount of work as it hires new associates and gets them up to speed. The firm will also have to bear the costs associated with the layoffs and the costs associated with hiring new associates and training them.

Second, keeping as many associates as possible will maintain good client service. Clients tell PAR that they don't like having the associates on their cases repeatedly replaced; clients not only pay to get the new associates up to speed, but they invest time and effort in developing personal relationships with them and gain efficiencies as the associates become familiar with their business. Keeping the associates who have relationships with clients is a big plus for all involved.

Finally, keeping the associates improves intangibles such as productivity and reputation. The retained associates feel more secure in their jobs, feel more loyalty toward their firm, and can focus on being productive rather than worrying about when the ax will fall. The firm gains a reputation for being humane and creative, which helps in future recruiting.

Is the reduced hours alternative a perfect solution? Of course not. Tomorrow, we will look at some of the common objections and assess their validity.

PAR Announces the Diversity and Flexibility Connection

2009-01-06T13:19:00.002-05:00

We've launched a new initiative here at PAR: the Diversity and Flexibility Connection. The Connection will bring together the best research of the diversity and flexibility fields, with the aim of creating real progress on both fronts.

One of the most significant aspects of the Connection is that it will also bring together prominent general counsels and managing partners for frank and in depth face-to-face discussions about how law firms and law departments can work together to support each other to make the legal profession more inclusive for women and minority lawyers.

Here's our press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

General Counsels and Managing Partners to Meet
for Diversity and Flexibility Initiative

SAN FRANCISCO, January 6, 2009: Today, the Project for Attorney Retention (PAR) launched the Diversity and Flexibility Connection with key general counsels and law firm managing partners. "There is a fundamental connection that has not been made at our nation's law firms that PAR is now in a strategic position to explore, and that is the connection between work/life strategies and diversity objectives," said Joan Williams, co-director of PAR. "We are very excited and greatly appreciative to have twelve distinguished general counsels participating in the Connection. Their involvement is a testament to the benefits both law firms and clients can gain from this broadened approach."

Although research shows that diversity programs need to include a work/life component in order to be successful, until now, diversity and work/life programs have largely been treated separately. "PAR is connecting carefully selected law firm managing partners and general counsels who are in positions to create real change," noted Williams. "This high level group will have frank, moderated discussions about how in-house and outside counsel can work together in an approach that incorporates the most effective tactics from both diversity and flexibility efforts."

PAR has selected, based on their leadership and commitment to diversity, the following general counsels to participate in the Connection:

Dennis J. Broderick, Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, Macy's Inc.

Catherine A. Lamboley, Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary (retired), Shell Oil Company

Thomas A. Mars, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Michele Coleman Mayes, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Allstate Insurance Company

Teri Plummer McClure, Senior Vice President of Legal Compliance and Public Affairs, General Counsel & Secretary, United Parcel Service

Roderick A. Palmore, Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, General Mills Inc.

James Potter, Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, Del Monte Foods Company

Thomas L. Sager, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, DuPont Company

Douglas G. Scrivner, General Counsel, Secretary & Compliance Officer, Accenture

Laura Stein, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, The Clorox Company

Leslie M. Turner, General Counsel CCNA, The Coca-Cola Company

Danette Wineberg, Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, The Timberland Company

The general counsels will invite twelve managing partners from firms that have a demonstrated commitment to diversity and work/life issues to participate in meetings. Topics to be discussed at the meetings include shared objectives for diversity, the role work/life issues play in diversity, major issues that affect women's advancement, and how corporate counsel and law firms can best work together to achieve inclusion through flexible scheduling. After initial discussions, the Connection will produce best practices and action steps for law departments and law firms. PAR will also assist with the establishment of metrics to measure the progress that results from the initiative.

PAR's Connection will complement the work of other influential groups and initiatives that are working to increase diversity and flexibility in law firms and to strengthen law firm/client relationships, such as A Call to Action, the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, the Association of Corporate Counsel's Value Challenge, the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, and the National Association of Women Lawyers. In consultation with these groups and building on their work, the Connection will bring together diversity and flexibility research and best practices that until now have been viewed as distinct. In keeping with PAR's hallmark, the Connection also will develop practical action steps and solutions for law firms and their clients that will achieve inclusion for all lawyers. PAR will release a report of the Connection's work and recommendations in the fall of 2009.

PAR, 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. 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 at www.pardc.org.

# # #

Watch PAR's website for updates.

Reduced Hours as an alternative to Layoffs?

2009-01-05T17:18:00.002-05:00

In today's National Law Journal, Karen Sloan explores an idea advanced by PAR: law firms should consider offering nonstigmatized reduced hours schedules to associates as an alternative to layoffs. (Cost-saving option for firms: reduced hours, by Karen Sloan, Jan. 05, 2009; subscription required.) Here's a brief summary for those of you who don't subscribe:

PAR and several law firm consultants are recommending that law firms look seriously at implementing reduced hours programs to manage their workforce and protect their reputations during the down economy. Many firms have laid off attorneys in recent months due to a lack of work. Linda Bray Chanow, PAR's Director of Research, said that associates would work fewer hours and receive proportionally reduced compensation, which would allow firms to lower their costs without losing their associates. The proposal is a business initiative, according to PAR Co-Director Cynthia Thomas Calvert. (Okay, the article really said that Calvert was the assistant director at PAR. But we're taking the liberty here of setting the record straight while we're summarizing.)

The article quotes Linda Headley, shareholder at Littler Mendelson, as saying that although her firm has not had to consider layoffs, if it were facing the issue, it would look at all of its options to preserve its talent. She noted that it is hard to get talented lawyers, and worth working to keep them. Michael Nannes, chairman of Dickstein Shapiro, is reported to have said that although firms use flex-time programs to accommodate changes in lawyers' lives, he doesn't think many firms will reduce hours to cut costs because reduced hours do not result in the same savings as layoffs. An example given is the a firm has to continue to provide office space to attorneys working reduced hours. Nannes also noted, however, that clients want continuity in their outside lawyers, and the reduced hours alternative would maintain client relationships.

Chanow, the article continues, notes that the reduced hours alternative gives firms the ability to handle increases in workloads by recalling some associates to full-time. She also notes that the alternative will maintain diversity among firms' associates, because the young associates who are most likely to be laid off are also most likely to be the firms' most diverse lawyers. Charles Santangelo of Hildebrandt International adds that firms that use reduced hours in lieu of layoffs will earn their associate's loyalty and make future recruiting easier. Douglas Richardson of Altman Weil questions whether clients may feel they are not getting value if a number of associates work on their matters.

Two final issues are raised in the article. The first is stigma. Calvert notes that the perception that reduced hours schedules are career-enders needs to be addressed by firms in order for the layoff alternative to be successful. The second is whether the reduced scheduling should be voluntary or mandatory. While PAR recommends voluntary programs, Richardson recommends that the programs be mandatory to avoid the reluctance of associates to reduce their hours. He suggests that firms spell out the terms under which reduced hours schedules could return to full-time in the future.

Sloan has done a nice job of laying out both sides of the issue, and we hope that frank conversations will result in law firms that are facing the need to cut costs due to declining workloads. Tomorrow, we will explore the topic a bit more in this space. In the meantime, if your firm is considering reduced hours in lieu of layoffs, please drop us a line and let us know.

Number of Men Working Part-Time Is Rising

2008-09-30T08:02:00.003-04:00

Denise Howell writes today for the American Lawyer that lawyer dads who work part-time are rare. (Part-Time Lawyer Dads Are Still a Rare Bird) She notes that men want work/life balance, but that men are not willing to sacrifice advancement for that balance. And she calls out -- very appropriately -- several firms that clearly make part-time a women-only option by structuring part-time programs as retention tools for women.

But the news may not be quite so bleak for men. PAR has been tallying the number of men working part-time at law firms for the past seven years, and there has been a definite increase. PAR's website feature, The Scoop, shows a number of firms that have part-time men. At some firms, nearly half of the part-timers are male -- perhaps not all are dads, and perhaps some are working part-time as they near retirement, but their numbers both show and contribute to a change in law firm culture. Here are some firms that are doing well in terms of the number of part-time males: Alston Bird, Arent Fox, Baker and Daniels, Beveridge & Diamond, Bingham, Crowell, DLA Piper, Farella, Fenwick, Finnegan, Fulbright, Haynes and Boone, Holland and Knight, Kilpatrick Stockton, Morrison and Foerster, Pillsbury Winthrop, Quinn Emanuel, Schiff Hardin, Sonnenschein, Squire Sanders, Wiley Rein, and Womble.

Further evidence: When PAR did its first study of part-time lawyers in 2000, we had a hard time finding men to interview. Now we are in the midst of a study of part-time partners, and the part-time dad partners are lining up to be interviewed.

Why the big emphasis on the number of male part-time lawyers? Two reasons: first, PAR has identified the number of males working part-time as a key indicator of the health of a firm's part-time program. If males at your firm are afraid to reduce their hours, then your firm's part-time program is too stigmatized to be an effective recruiting and retention tool for any lawyers. Second, it is very important for males to be able to have work/life balance, as PAR has been advising for years through its principle of "universal application" for part-time programs. It is important for their mental health, for their families' lives, and for eventual gender equality.

PAR Begins Part-Time Partner Study

2008-09-02T18:00:00.003-04:00

In response to many inquiries from part-time partners and from law firms about the best way to structure part-time partnerships in law firms, the Project for Attorney Retention is embarking on a new study designed to identify best practices that law firms can use to develop effective policies and practices for part-time partners. We are collecting information on all aspects of part-time partners' experiences, as well as compensation, business generation expectations, and firm services expectations. In addition to interviewing part-time partners, we will be interviewing managing partners and working with law firm consultants. Our study will result in a report that will not only provide an overview of the current state of part-time partnerships, but will also provide best practices for law firms.

The study will include a special focus on part-time partners in Denver, thanks to the participation and support of the Colorado Women's Bar Association Foundation.

If you are a part-time partner in a law firm and would like to participate in the study, please send an email to LindaChanow at pardc dot org.

We anticipate providing preliminary results to PAR's sustaining members in early spring 2009, and releasing a full report to the public at PAR's second annual conference in May 2009.

Law Students are Thinking About Work/Life Balance

2008-08-22T11:02:00.002-04:00

I had the honor of attending the first year orientation at my former law school this week. The students of the Class of 2011 are an extremely bright, energetic, and enthusiastic group. They were eager to talk with the alumni about our law school experiences and the practice of law. This was not a shy group and I very much enjoyed the time that I spent with them. In fact, I left the orientation reinvigorated about my own career in the law.

I was surprised by very few of the questions that I was asked. But, I was taken aback by one question that was asked by some of the female first years. Can a lawyer be successful and still have a family? My answer was absolutely! It takes flexibility and open communication on the part of the attorney and the employer. I also mentioned the work that PAR has and continues to do with law firms around the issue of reduced hours. They were encouraged to hear that law firms have come a long way since I graduated from law school thirteen years ago. Lawyers who want to be involved parents while continuing to practice law at its highest level and requests for reduced hours schedules are no longer met with surprise by firm management.

I was also a bit surprised that none of the male first years asked me about work/life balance, given the spate of research showing that young men want to be more involved with their family lives than their fathers were. To all of the young men who didn’t ask but wanted to: “Yes, you can have lives outside the office, too, and PAR strongly supports your efforts to do so.”

Fair Evaluations as a Business Strategy

2008-08-13T13:02:00.003-04:00

We're all familiar with the lawyer performance evaluation process -- that nerve-wracking annual rite that partners don't have time to do and that can make or break an associate's career.

What we may not be familiar with is how performance evaluations -- which could be a strategic tool to improve the performance and profitability of lawyers and law firms -- often are based on hidden biases that disadvantage women and minority lawyers. A book released last week not only explains how bias is manifested in annual reviews, but gives step-by-step instructions for eliminating bias and turning a law firm's evaluation process into a mechanism for developing excellence.

Fair Measure: Toward Effective Attorney Evaluations, Second Edition (ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, August 2008), written by PAR's Joan Williams and Consuela Pinto, begins with a discussion of how providing bias-free evaluations fits within a law firm's business strategy. Among other things, the authors note that such evaluations improve firmwide performance and client satisfaction, while also making sure the firm is focused on keeping its "keepers."

Joan and Consuela then provide a thought-provoking discussion of ways in which bias shows up in evaluations. One common pattern involves attributing men's mistakes to external factors and women's mistakes to internal characteristics, with the result that men's mistakes tend not to be counted against them in decisions about retention and/or promotion. For example, if Paul and Paula have a secretary who made an error that resulted in a missed deadline, Paul's evaluation might read, "Paul had some difficulty this year with a missed deadline. It was ultimately found to be his secretary's fault, and it is unlikely it will happen again." Paula's evaluation, on the other hand, might go like this: "Paula missed an important deadline in one of our cases this year. I have some concerns about her organizational abilities and her ability to supervise her secretary. I'm not sure she is a good fit with our department."

Another common pattern involves promoting men based on their potential, and women based on their accomplishments. If Paul and Paula are up for partner and neither has developed much business, it would not be unusual for the partnership committee to go along with a partnership recommendation for Paul if he shows promise as a rainmaker but deny partnership to Paula because she did not yet have a book of business.

Following PAR's practice of not discussing problems unless solutions are also provided, Joan and Consuela spend the remainder of the manual describing how firms can create evaluation systems that correct for bias and providing practical tips for writing effective performance evaluations. They also include materials for law firms to use to educate their partners about how to conduct bias-free evaluations, including a CD of forms.

To help firms put the wisdom of Fair Measure into practice, PAR has developed a presentation that firms can use to brief their attorneys on effective, strategic, and bias-free evaluations. The presentation is customizable, and can be given either by PAR or by firms' professional development staff. Additionally, PAR has consultants who can help law firms implement improved evaluation procedures. To learn more about PAR's resources for law firms, please visit PAR's website, send us an email at info at pardc.org, or call us at 415-565-4640.

And be sure to get your copy of Fair Measure today!

PAR Conference in DC on May 15th

2008-04-21T10:14:00.002-04:00

The Project for Attorney Retention will host a conference next month designed to help law firms attract, retain, and advance women lawyers:

Positioning Law Firms for Long-Term Success:
New Strategies for Advancing Women Lawyers

May 15, 2008
Marvin Center, Third Floor Ballroom
George Washington University
800 21st Street, NW, Washington, D.C.

Despite best intentions and a variety of women’s initiatives, legal employers are still having a difficult time retaining and promoting women lawyers. This conference will provide legal employers with innovative, proven strategies for advancing women lawyers and, ultimately, strengthening their organizations for the future.

Agenda:

9:00 Registration and coffee

9:30 Welcome

9:35 Keynote: Why Women’s Initiatives Fail and What To Do About It (Joan Williams)

10:00 Successful Women, Successful Firms: Eleven Practical Strategies for Recruiting, Retaining, and Advancing Women Lawyers (Cynthia Calvert, Linda Chanow, and Consuela Pinto)

11:00 Break

11:15 A View from the Road Ahead: Innovations from Accounting Firms for Law Firms to Adopt Now (Patti Yoder, Mid-Atlantic People Team Leader, Ernst & Young LLP; Lisa A. Madden, Partner, Corporate Group (former Managing Partner, Washington National Tax Office), KPMG)

12:15 Lunch: sandwich buffet

1:15 Building a Culture of Inclusiveness: A View from Inside a Firm (Ellen Ostrow, Founder and Principal, Lawyers Life Coach LLC; Karen Hansen, Esq., Chair, Diversity Committee, Beveridge and Diamond, P.C.)

1:45 Measuring for a Purpose: What Law Firms Can't Afford to Ignore (M.J. Tocci, President, Fulcrum Advisors)

2:15 Leaders for Today and Tomorrow: Advancing Women through Succession Planning (Ida Abbott, President, Ida Abbott Consulting LLC)

2:45 Break

3:00: Refining Law Firm Culture to Support Flexibility (Jeannine Rupp, Principal, Armonia LLC)

3:30 The Client’s Perspective on Women Lawyers in Law Firms (Hinton J. Lucas, Jr., Associate General Counsel and Chief Administrative Counsel, Dupont; Miguel R. Rivera, Sr., Associate General Counsel, Wal-Mart)

4:15 This is How We Do It: Law firm representatives discuss their successful strategies (Roundtable discussions)

4:50 Closing Remarks (Joan Williams)

Reception 5:00 – 6:00

Fee: $149

Online registration available on the PAR website.

Questions? Contact us at conference at pardc dot org.

PAR and Ms. JD Announce Essay Contest Winners

2008-04-01T12:22:00.002-04:00

PAR and Ms. JD held an essay contest, asking entrants to provide a response to lawyers who may view young lawyers today who want some time outside the office as lacking in ambition.

The winning essays can be read on Ms. JD's website.

Here's an excerpt from the press release about the winners:

New York, NY – Fifty-four passionate and well-written entries were received by work/life balance advocates Ms. JD and the Project for Attorney Retention (PAR) in the first-ever essay contest co-sponsored by the two groups. The assigned topic was one that has received much press as of late: bridging the seemingly expansive divide between Baby Boomer partners and Gen-Y/Millennial young lawyers. It asked entrants essentially to explain why Millennials, who place a premium on work/life balance are not merely slackers. In short, it asked Gen-Y to explain persuasively their rationale for work/life balance—a balance that may very well have been sacrificed by their senior colleagues.

PAR’s team of work-life balance experts judged the entries based on their creativity, originality, and viability, and Co-Directors Cynthia Thomas Calvert and Joan C. Williams selected and ranked the top three. First prize was awarded to Lori Johnson, who attends University of Mississippi. Ms. JD awarded her $1,000.

Regarding Ms. Johnson’s essay, Williams said, "We were impressed at the high level of interest among Millennials in reaching out to Baby Boomers to seek common ground in serving clients – and lawyers – better. The winning essay brings concrete life experience in the accounting profession to bear in offering some concrete solutions to the legal profession, based on the experience in another personal service profession."

The second place essay was written jointly by Davida Brook and Andrew Bruck of Stanford Law School. Third place was awarded to Sabrina Ursaner of New York University School of Law. Jodi Rosenberg, who is a mother of three and of counsel at Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith & Davis LLP in New Jersey, earned an Honorable Mention. The winning essays are posted on the Ms. JD website.

Natalie Hiott-Levine, Assistant Director of PAR, said the two organizations hope to make the essay contest an annual event. "Today’s young lawyers are thinking about and experiencing work/life issues differently than the last generation. Essay contests such as this one give these experiences a voice and afford us meaningful insight into the evolution of the profession and its professionals,” she said.

Law Firms' New Partners Are Mostly Male

2008-03-14T11:58:00.004-04:00

PAR is issuing today its new report on the number of women in various law firms' new partner classes. For the first time, PAR has compiled statistics for the prior three years to provide a more complete picture of the progress -- or lack thereof -- of women lawyers in law firms. The bottom line? More women are being made partner, but many firms are still lagging way behind in the count. Here's an excerpt from the report. The full report and chart are available on PAR's website.

For some time now, we have known that the lack of women in leadership positions at law firms is not a pipeline issue. Women have been graduating from law schools at a rate of 40% or higher since 1985 and entering private practice at the same rate as their male counterparts – 70% – during that time. Over the past two years, we have seen an increasing number of firms looking for ways to retain their talented women lawyers and to advance them into leadership positions. In light of this increased focus, we set out to review this year’s partnership classes with a renewed optimism that firms might be walking the talk. We collected promotion statistics for a total of 77 law firms representing a variety of sizes and locations. We chose these firms based on inclusion in prior years’ surveys, firm size, reputation and availability of information. We also combined the new information with the data that we had collected in previous years so that, for the first time, we could see whether a particular firm has made strides or slipped over the past four years.

We found good news. At a dozen firms, 50% or more of the new partners were women: Dorsey & Whitney (10 of 14 new partners are female, for 71%), Ropes & Gray (7 of 10 new partners are female, for 70%), Simpson Thacher & Bartlett (4 of 6 new partners are female, for 67%), Blackwell Sanders (8 of 12 new partners are female, for 67%), Cravath, Swaine & Moore (2 of 3 new partners are female, for 67%), Crowell & Moring (4 of 7 new partners are female, for 57%), DLA Piper (15 of 28 new partners are female, for 54%), Reed Smith (14 of 26 new partners are female, for 54%), Arnold & Porter (2 of 4 new partners are female, for 50%), Cadwalader (1 of 2 new partners is female, for 50%), Shearman & Sterling (3 of 6 new partners are female, for 50%), and Womble Carlyle (4 of 8 new partners are female, for 50%).

At many firms, between a third and a half of the partners promoted this year were women. Some notable firms: Baker Hostetler (8 of 17 new partners are female, for 47%), Bryan Cave (6 of 13 new partners are female, for 46%), Patton Boggs (4 of 9 new partners are female, for 44%), Venable (4 of 9 new partners are female, for 44%), Dewey & LeBoeuf (4 of 10 new partners are female, for 40%), McDermott Will & Emory (14 of 35 new partners are female, for 40%), Hogan & Hartson (7 of 18 new partners are female, for 39%), Kirkland & Ellis (21 of 56 new partners are female, for 38%), Cleary Gottlieb (3 of 8 new partners are female, for 36%), Morrison & Foerster (7 of 20 new partners are female, for 35%), Arent Fox (1 of 3 new partners is female, for 33%), Holland and Hart (2 of 6 new partners are female, for 33%), Holland & Knight (6 of 18 new partners are female, for 33%), Stroock & Stroock & Lavan (2 of 6 new partners are female, for 33%), and Thelen, Reid (5 of 15 new partners are female, for 33%).

However, other firms are seriously lagging behind. Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein did not make a single female partner (0 of 8 new partners were female). For others, only one or two women lawyers were awarded the brass ring: Orrick (1 of 13 new partners is female, for 8%), Proskauer Rose (1 of 11 new partners is female, for 9%), Nixon Peabody (1 of 11 new partners is female, for 9%), Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman (1 of 11 new partners is female, for 9%), Baker & Daniels (1 of 9 new partners is female, for 11%), Vinson & Elkins (1 of 9 new partners is female, for 11%), Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge (1 of 9 new partners is female), Akin Gump (2 of 15 new partners are female, for 13%), Milbank (1 of 8 new partners is female, for 13%), White & Case (1 of 7 new partners is female, for 14%), and Gibson Dunn (2 of 13 new partners are female, for 15%).

Some of the most interesting information can be found by examining the trends for individual law firms. For instance, in all but one of the past four partnership classes at Crowell & Moring women have been 50% or more of the firm’s new partners. Likewise, women have been 40% or more of the new partners in the past three partnership classes at Cadwalader. DLA Piper has had three years of steady but moderate progress followed this year by a substantial increase to 54%. In two of the three previous partnership classes at Ropes & Gray, women have been more than a third of the new partners and the firm this year was one of the path-breakers with 70% of its new partners being women. In contrast, at Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge, the percentage of women promoted to partner has steadily decreased in each of the last three years (30% in 2006, 20% in 2007, and 11% in 2008). And at some firms such as Akin Gump, Dechert, Milbank, Pillsbury, Strook & Strook, Vinson & Elkins and White & Case, women have been largely absent from most of the past four partnership classes.

Click here for the full report.

Up Next: PAR's almost annual round up of new partners

2008-01-24T11:12:00.000-05:00

We're working away on our annual look at the new partners at large law firms: how many are women? how many worked a reduced hours schedule?

We were unable to publish our round up last year, so we're including last year's numbers as well, where we have them.

If you would like to make our job easier and send us the statistics for your firm, that would be great. We need to know the total number of partners made in the U.S. offices, the total number who were women, and the total number who worked reduced schedules prior to being made partner.

Usage of Part-Time Programs Growing -- Slowly

2007-12-11T22:51:00.000-05:00

NALP has released its 2007 part-time usage statistics. In a 12/5/07 press release, NALP reports that 5.4% of attorneys at its member firms work part-time. While this percentage remains low relative to other professional occupations (the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that for the same time period, 14% of professionals worked part-time), it has steadily climbed in recent years. In 1999, NALP reported that only 2.9% of attorneys worked part-time, and by 2003, the figure was 4.1%.

Encouragingly, the percentage of part-time partners is also growing, from 1.6% in 1999 to 3% in 2007. NALP found that the largest concentration of part-time attorneys can be found among the of counsel and staff attorney ranks, where 19% of attorneys work part-time.

Women, of course, continue to work part-time more frequently than men (75% of part-time attorneys are women, according to NALP).

Law Firm Rankings Released Today

2007-10-10T22:13:00.000-04:00

Want to know which law firms have the highest percentage of women partners, the most pro bono participation, or the highest number of Hispanic attorneys? A new report issued today will tell you all that and more.

Law Students Building a Better Legal Profession, a group of law students from across the country "dedicated to helping law firms and lawyers recommit to a legal profession devoted to effective and efficient client service, to lawyers as people, and to the roots of our profession in service," tabulated information from NALP about the largest law firms in six markets. They ranked and graded the law firms in various individual categories (percentage of partners and associates who are women, black, Hispanic, Asian, openly LGBT, amount of pro bono participation) and also prepared an overall report card. The end result is a very useful tool that should help law students and laterals find law firms that fit their needs.

Cynthia Calvert of PAR spoke at the group's press conference today. She emphasized that the rankings will also benefit law firms by highlighting the importance of diversity, allowing the firms to see how they are doing vis a vis other firms, and providing an incentive to improve diversity by affecting the supply of applicants.

The report follows on the heels of the Yale Law Women's top ten list of family-friendly firms. The list, beginning with no. 1 is: Quarles & Brady; Proskauer Rose; Akin Gump Strauss Hauer; Jenner & Block; Mayer Brown; Covington & Burling; Arnold & Porter; DLA Piper; Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, PC; and Faegre & Benson. The list was created using responses to NALP's Workplace Questionnaire, and considered such factors as maternity leave, availability of child care, and percentage of attorneys working part-time.

Law students and laterals seeking employment in law firms should also check out The Scoop, PAR's online information about what it is really like to work part-time at various law firms, and PAR's law student resource page.

PAR Launches Membership Program

2007-09-04T17:26:00.001-04:00

Today, PAR began a membership program for law firms. Twenty-three firms have signed up as Founding Members, and more have expressed interest in joining in the coming months. Membership in PAR gives the firms a number of benefits: the ability to support PAR's research; a complimentary review of their part-time policies by PAR's expert staff; a teleconference for their attorneys who are working reduced hours about how to advance professionally; tickets to PAR's upcoming conference; and a copy of Joan and Cynthia's book, Solving the Part-Time Puzzle: The Law Firm's Guide to Balanced Hours (NALP 2004). Sustaining members also get advance briefings of PAR's new research and a teleconference by one of PAR's experts for their firms on a topic of their choosing related to work/life or advancement of women attorneys. More information about the program is on PAR's website.

Which firms joined? Here's the list:

SUSTAINING MEMBERS

Arnold & Porter
Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass
Fenwick & West
Fulbright & Jaworski
Howrey
Powell Goldstein
Shook, Hardy & Bacon
Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal
Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice

SUPPORTING MEMBERS

Andrews Kurth
Arent Fox
Crowell & Moring
Dickstein Shapiro
Farella Braun + Martel
Hogan & Hartson
Jackson Lewis
Mayer Brown
McCarter & English
Miller Law Group
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
Outten & Golden
Schiff Hardin
Sidley Austin

A very impressive group!

PAR's press release about the membership program can be read here.

Firms that are interested in joining should send an email to ManarMorales (no space) (at) pardc.org

New Information at The Scoop: What it is Really Like to Work Part-Time in Firms

2007-08-22T15:09:00.000-04:00

We've had a busy summer at PAR. Joan and Cynthia have been writing and making speeches, we're in the midst of planning the first of what we hope will be annual PAR conferences for next May in DC, we've been consulting with lawyers and law firms about retention issues, and we're updating the gossip section of the PAR website: The Scoop.

The Scoop has information about part-time work at large law firms. It contains factual information about the firms' part-time policies, gathered from the firms and elsewhere, and also contains comments from attorneys who work or have worked at the firms. We have also thrown in a few comments ourselves here and there about aspects of the firms' policies that we like or dislike.

The Scoop is designed to help law students and laterals make informed decisions when they are choosing legal employers. It is also designed to bridge the communication gap that we found exists in some firms between management and attorneys about how part-time policies are working. Finally, it is designed to let law firms see how programs are set up at other firms so they can measure their own performance and perhaps make some adjustments.

In updating The Scoop, we've seen a few trends. First, in a dramatic change from just seven to eight years ago, almost all large law firms now allow attorneys who reduce their hours to remain on the partnership track and most have in fact actually made part-time attorneys partner. Second, and also dramatic, many more men are working part-time than ever before. The presence of male part-timers is usually a good sign that a firm's part-time program is usable (i.e., not a professional kiss of death). Third, we are seeing more firms giving part-timers full benefits. Fourth, we are seeing more firms adopting one of PAR's best practices, which is appointing a balanced hours coordinator (or part-time coordinator).

If you work in a law firm, we would appreciate receiving comments from you about what it is like to work reduced hours at your firm. If your firm isn't yet listed and you have something to say, let us know and we'll add it. We are looking for comments from all attorneys, male or female, associate/partner/counsel, whether based on personal experience or observation. Also, we are interested in all information, whether positive, negative, or otherwise. All comments are kept anonymous (although we do try to confirm that the person commenting actually did work at the firm).

The Scoop will be a useful tool only if we have your participation. Please take a couple of minutes right now to send a comment to Scoop at pardc dot org. Many thanks!

UC Hastings "Opting Back In" program: Success Stories and Lessons Learned

2007-04-06T13:57:00.000-04:00

PAR has now completed two 8-week "Opting Back In and Forging Ahead" sessions at UC Hastings College of the Law for attorneys who left law for a year or more and want to return to the legal workplace. Program Director Linda Marks reports "The program exceeded our expectations." Here are some of the Success Stories:

1) Some participants already have work. Among them are an attorney who ...
- ... was away from practice for 16 1/2 years and is now a 60% associate position at a large international firm;
- ... kept one foot in the profession through volunteer mediation work and was hired as a full-time tradmark associate by a prominent national litigation firm;
- ... found out about a Regional Counsel position at an insurance company through the Opting Back In program and was hired for that position recently.
- ... is pregnant with her third child and is doing contract work at a mid-size firm with the hope of part-time work on her return.
- ... wanted part-time work and is providing maternity leave coverage at a community law center with the hope of part-time or job sharing later.

2) Employers are showing interest:
- "We should be actively recruiting these attorneys"
- "We're putting together a program to help attorneys come back."
- "I'm going to tell everyone about this great recruiting source."
- "These attorneys are mature and less of a flight risk."

3) There's lots of media interest.

4) Alumni of the program are now part of a Yahoo Group, sharing ideas and resources.

And here are some Lessons Learned:

1) It's all about networking. Most of the attorneys in the program who found jobs did so by getting known in the hidden job market. Need speakers? Network for them.

2) Group members love feeling supported and part of a community. That's why they asked for the Yahoo group.

3) Having the backing and resources of a law school like UC Hastings is wonderful. The program succeeded with the help of Hastings', Career Services, Alumni Relations, the Civil Justice Clinic, several wonderful librarians and, of course, the Dean.

4) There's a talented group of attorneys who don't want to work full-time in big firms. It's time to change the workplace so it meets the needs of its workers.

The next Opting Back In program is scheduled for October-November 2007.

PAR launches the PAR Law School Project

2007-04-02T19:38:00.000-04:00

To kick off PAR’s Law School Project, PAR co-director Joan Williams spoke at two events last week: a law student event for the Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia, and the Ms. J.D. conference at Yale Law School. PAR’s Law School project is designed to help legal employers respond effectively to the desire of many law students for legal jobs that offer both the opportunity to practice law at the highest level and the opportunity for work/life balance.

One resource for law students is How to Find a Job that Allows for Work/Life Balance, co-written by PAR and the Stanford Law School Office of Career Services.

Another is PAR’s Mythbusters, which provides hard data to bust nine key myths about work/life balance in the legal profession:

Myth 1: Work/life balance is a women’s issue.
Myth 2: Law firms are trying hard, but the problems of retaining women and offering work/life balance are too intractable.
Myth 3: Law firms lose money on part-timers.
Myth 4: You can tell whether you will be able to work part-time by checking a law firm’s website.
Myth 5: Going “in house” is the way to achieve balance.
Myth 6: Going into the government or public interest law is the way to achieve balance.
Myth 7: “I’ll just take off a year or two when I have my kids, and then I’ll go back to practicing law.”
Myth 8: Work/life balance is inconsistent with the practice of law at the highest levels.
Myth 9: Young lawyers say they want work/life balance, but when the chips are down they really want the highest possible salary.

PAR Names Work/Life Role Models to Advisory Council

2007-03-01T11:17:00.000-05:00

PAR is very pleased to announce that it has named to its Advisory Council the following outstanding individuals and organizations that are role models for best practices in the work/life area:

Amy Bess, Partner, Sonnenshein, Nath, & Rosenthal LLP

Doug Coblens, Executive Vice-President, Discovery Communications

Erik Corwin, Partner, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP

Mary Cranston, Partner, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP

J. Cunyon Gordon, Counsel, Eimer Stahl, Klevorn & Solberg LLP

Susan Hackett, General Counsel, Corporate Counsel Association

Joan Haratani, Partner, Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP

Alison Hooker, Transactions Advisory Services, Global People Leader, Ernst & Young, LLP

Peter Kalis, Managing Partner, K&L Gates

Gerry Lowry, Partner, Fulbright & Jaworski LLP

Anthony Lupo, Partner, Arent Fox LLP

Lisa A. Madden, Partner, KPMG LLP

Maureen McGinnity, Partner, Foley & Lardner LLP

Debra Myerson, Professor, Stanford University

Michael Nannes, Managing Partner, Dickstein Shapiro LLP

Linda Oliver, Partner, Hogan & Hartson LLP

Carter Philips, Partner, Sidley & Austin LLP

James Potter, Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary, Del Monte Foods Company

James Sandman, Partner, Arnold & Porter LLP

The Council will advise the Project for Attorney Retention (PAR) on best practices for retaining valued professionals and assist PAR with carrying out its mission of studying and advocating for retention through the use of balanced hours schedules.

PAR Co-Director, Joan Williams, said she is "extremely honored to have these impressive individuals on our Advisory Council." She added, "The legal and accounting professions are both facing high attrition and a shrinking pool of qualified replacements, and PAR has documented how the culture of long hours in these professions has contributed to this situation. Each person selected for the Council brings a wealth of experience and knowledge about work/life issues, as well as a commitment to helping professionals and their employers find common ground where they can both benefit from balanced hours.”

An Ill-Advised Article

2007-02-23T09:27:00.000-05:00

This article left me scratching my head ... over just who was clueless enough to think up the idea for writing it. I hesitate to even discuss it here for fear of giving the article more publicity than it deserves, but here goes anyway.

The article is about women leaving the law and their reasons for doing so -- mostly because they decided that they weren't cut out for the law. (Okay, if you have to read it, it is Leaving Your Legal Career Far Behind by Debra Bruno of the Legal Times.) Women, the article seems to imply, are just clueless when it comes to understanding or anticipating what a legal career entails. One woman left the law because she belatedly realized she wanted to write, one believed that lawyers don't see the big picture of issues, another didn't like representing big business, and one is just too restless to focus on the law. Almost as an afterthought, the article quotes one woman who left because law firms are too inflexible in their scheduling.

Don't women have a hard enough time as it is fighting bias within the workplace without junk journalism like this?

Two facts:

Men leave law firms in exactly the same numbers as women. The most recent study published by the NALP Foundation shows that for entry level associates, 78% of men and 78% of women leave law firms by their fifth year. To highlight the departures of women while totally ignoring the departures of men feeds the misperception that women aren't committed to the law and aren't worth hiring or training because they'll just leave.

Men also leave law firms because practicing law isn't what they thought it would be. They do -- all the time. PAR has heard from men that they didn't like working for big business, found legal work too confining, or wanted to save the world. And, of course, PAR has heard from men that they don't like the high billable hours requirements at law firms, which is even harder for men to say for fear of being labeled "unmanly." By omitting any discussion of men's reasons for leaving the law, the article just reinforces the stereotype of women as uncommitted and lacking in seriousness.

Joan Williams, Jessica Manvell, and Stephanie Bornstein of the Center for WorkLife Law did a terrific study of how the media portrays the issue of women leaving the workforce ("Opt Out" or Pushed Out? How the Press Covers Work/Family Conflict -- The Untold Story of Why Women Leave the Workforce). It demonstrates how articles like this one inaccurately portray the status of women in the workforce and how the inaccurate portrayals reinforce stereotypes that "drive men into breadwinner roles and women out of them." Ms. Bruno, I highly recommend the study to you. Maybe it will help you to understand the serious disservice your article did to women lawyers.

Part-Time Partners

2007-02-05T09:24:00.000-05:00

Gregory Gallopoulos, managing partner of Jenner and Block, has written a terrific article about part-time partners ("How to be a Full Partner on a Part-Time Schedule", available on law.com). A main point of the article is that partners who work reduced hours need to contribute to the firm economically and in other ways, such as mentoring and firm support. PAR has long advocated balanced hours schedules that include non-billable as well as billable time, and Mr. Gallopoulos's reminder that this principle is as important for partners as for associates is well-taken.

PAR would like to hear from partners who are working reduced hours. Regardless of the reason for reducing hours (phased retirement, health reasons, volunteer work, child care, family care, etc.), we would like to hear how you make your schedule work, what you do to maintain your professionalism, what your contributions to your firm are, whether your arrangement is formal or informal, how it affects your compensation, etc. You can send a private email to us at info at pardc.org, or join PAR's discussion forum and post your comments there if you would like to share your information with others.

Associates v. Partners v. Clients

2007-02-02T10:51:00.000-05:00

Stephanie Ward of the ABA Journal has a new piece out that is sure to stir some conversation -- if not a hornet's nest. The article, "The Ultimate Time-Money Trade-Off," appears in the February issue of the ABA Journal and is available for a limited time online at the ABA Journal eReport.

The article brings into sharp relief the differing views of law firm associates, managing partners, and clients. These three constituencies have complementary goals, but you'd never know it from what they're saying.

First, the associates: from an admittedly "unscientific" poll, associates overwhelmingly say they want fewer billable hours and they are willing to trade money for time. This finding matches the finding of several studies, including work done by PAR. What is striking is the high percentage who want to work fewer hours: of 2377 respondents, a whopping 82.4% say they would trade time for money. Clearly, the results are skewed (people who don't want to make that trade off probably wouldn't bother themselves with answering the poll), but even if you discount half the results, the number still gets your attention.

Second, the partners: some of the partners and one law firm consultant are apparently out of touch with reality. Rather than recognizing that today's workforce has certain expectations, needs, and limits that have to be addressed in order to attract and retain good talent, they are plowing forth on the same doomed path that got them into the high attrition/low loyalty/high client dissatisfaction situation they have been suffering from for the past decade.

Carl Leonard, former chair of Morrison & Foerster (anyone seen their attrition stats recently, particularly among women?) and now a law firm consultant, is quoted as saying that you can't cut hours if you want to be a successful firm, and that lawyers who cut back their hours are "so-so lawyers." Amazingly, regrettably, and horrifyingly, Mr. Leonard is a consultant to law firms, so I suppose he is counseling law firms not to let attorneys cut their hours. Solid real-world evidence refutes Mr. Leonard's claim that a firm that allows its attorneys to cut their hours can't be successful -- numerous law firms and accounting firms have been very successful and have significantly reduced attrition, improved their recruiting of top talent, and enhanced their relationships with their clients because they let their attorneys reduce their hours. They are still profitable, including profit that stems from saving a few million dollars a year in attrition-related costs.

As for "so-so" lawyers? We know former Supreme Court clerks, top litigators, and associates who already have a solid book of business who are now working reduced hours. No one would consider them to be so-so. We also know plenty of men and women associates who are bright, provide excellent client service, and could be the future of their firms -- and they are working reduced hours. Again, none are so-so. Mr. Leonard's type of knee-jerk thinking is exactly what is holding law firms back from being as open as their clients are to flexible ways to work.

Third, the clients: The article reflects a fear that PAR has heard from corporate clients, that billable hour requirements are so beyond what attorneys want to work that there may be a little padding going on. Whether true or not, perceptions like this related to high billable hour requirements do affect client relationships.

The article also quotes several in-house counsel as saying they would support a reduction in billable hours. PAR's studies concur. Barry Nagler, GC of Hasbro, Inc., says he thinks reduced billable hours would be a good retention tool, calling it a "creative and enlightened" way to hang on to your best lawyers. Susan Robinson of Stanford Law School adds that it would be a good recruiting tool. Again, experience proves them to be right. Law firms that have implemented non-stigmatized reduced hours policies are measuring their increased retention and enjoying a better pool of applicants from which to hire. Accounting firms have had the same experience, and have publicized their results.

Michael Roster, a VP of a Wachovia subsidiary, offers another reason firms won't reduce billable hours: the firms will have a harder time measuring "who is really good and who is committed" and who should be made partner if they no longer have high numbers of billable hours to use as a measuring stick. Mr. Roster is accurately describing the way many law firms think, but that description is completely out of touch with good business practices. Using the number of billable hours worked as a proxy for worth is ridiculous -- it tells you only who can put their bottoms in chairs the longest, and may even tell you who is the least efficient. Many firms are starting now to decouple face time and worth, which is commendable trend. Instead of looking at billable hours, firms need to base their evaluations and partnership decisions on each attorney's experience, successes, client relationships, potential for business development, and the like. That is the only logical way to measure value. The numerous companies that have implemented good flexible work schedules know this. Deloitte and Ernst certainly know this.

As for billable hours telling you who is committed? Don't get me started. You have to be extremely committed to the law to try to be a lawyer while also meeting obligations outside the office. The only reason lawyers who cut their hours appear not to be committed is the way they are treated by their firms once they make the cut -- poor assignments, more critical evaluations, reduced client contact, less mentoring, fewer business development opportunities, and worse operate to push those lawyers out the door. It really is the firm that is less committed -- to the lawyer. The reduced-hours lawyers are probably in fact more committed to the firm and is trying to stay with the firm -- the lawyer who bills 70 hours per week is probably getting through each week by repeating over and over again: "Just six more months, just six more months and I'm outta here, just six more months until this is over, I can make it for six more months...".

I would much rather have an associate working for me who bills 40 hours a week, does solid work that returns favorable results for the client, has a strong relationship with the client that is not undermined by mistrust of the number of hours billed, and that is likely to get additional work from the client as the relationship strengthens than an associate who bills 70 hours a week and gets good results for the client, but who is likely to leave within two years because of burnout and a desire to have a life outside the office. The first associate will give me much higher profits in the long term, and will contribute to the financial stability of my firm.

The article concludes with sage observations from Ida Abbott, a law firm consultant who frequently works with PAR, who says better management of firms would mean hours could be decreased without hurting profitability -- and that really, the associates are only asking to work what the rest of the world considers to be full-time work.

Flextime for the Rest of Us

2007-01-08T15:34:00.000-05:00

A recent article in the NY TImes, "Flextime for the Rest of Us," features P.J. Himmelfarb, one of the two Weil Gotshal flex-time partners. Ms. Himmelfarb joined Weil 4 years ago after one of her twin daughters was diagnosed with autism. From the beginning, she worked a flexible schedule which included moving around the country to seek new therapies for her daughter. Her work patterns were different on a daily basis and she had her calls forwarded to her cell phone.

Although the article mentions that she worked part-time, it's unclear to us whether the author was using the terms flex-time and part-time interchangeably, if Himmelfarb was in fact working a reduced AND flexible schedule, or if flex-time was considered part-time at the firm. In any event, when Ms. Himmelfarb appeared to be "'working harder than [the firm had] been paying [her],'" the firm came to her and gave her the difference in salary.

The article also mentions the following statistics: Greenberg Traurig (Miami office) just elected its first flex-time associate to partner while she was on maternity leave. Sidley Austin (Chicago office) -- 83 female attorneys work a reduced schedule; 22 are partners . Judge L. Randall Weisberg (a man) & Judge Julia Philbrook (a woman), both criminal court judges in Portland OR, job-share in the Multnomah County Circuit Court with each working every other week for half pay and nearly full benefits.

Do you work a reduced and/or flexible schedule? Would you consider sharing your arrangement on the PAR Forum? Often we hear from attorneys who would like to work a reduced or flexible schedule but who need guidance in creating their proposal. Please take a moment to post a few details about your flexible schedule so that other attorneys can benefit from your experience.

Natalie and Heather

More on Fenwick & West

2007-01-05T14:31:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Ralph Pais for a quick response regarding Fenwick & West's work/life policies. He confirms that the firm has a terrific reduced hours policy, and has put together several programs to support its successful implementation. The firm is also planning to feature work/life issues at its upcoming all-attorney firm retreat. Ralph also states that the firm considers all aspects of diversity, including retention of women and lawyers working on reduced schedules, in the compensation program discussed in our earlier blog.

WTG!

Fenwick & West Implements Innovative Diversity Program

2007-01-05T12:12:00.000-05:00

Jesse Seyfer of The Recorder reports on a laudable new program at Fenwick & West that ties partner compensation to how well the partners support the firm's diversity goals ("Fenwick Redefines Color of Money with Diversity Goals"). Partners are given a list of suggested activities to improve minority recruiting and retention, among other things, and then associates are allowed to evaluate the partners on how well they performed. In the article, one partner reports that he received a "not insignificant" bonus for his work on a pro bono gay-rights matter and for visiting minority organizations at law schools.

The article notes that another aspect of the program includes partners being asked to ensure that attorneys of both genders and all races and sexual orientations have significant client contact.

PAR has previously discussed two best practices that are similar to Fenwick & West's practices. The first is tying compensation to how well partners support a firm's part-time program and advancement of women, and the second is looking at teams that service the firm's clients to make sure that they include attorneys on alternative schedules and women.

Based on comments made by Fenwick & West partner Ralph Pais at a conference last March sponsored by PAR and the Center for WorkLife Law, it appears that the firm is also exploring innovative programs in the work/life balance arena. The firm's website says that the firm offers "flexible work schedules, reduced billable hour requirements, backup childcare, and an on-site lactation room, and it notes that 30% of the firm's executive management committees are female. Several firms have already instituted programs of tying partner compensation to how well they retain women and support work/life programs. Would anyone from Fenwick & West like to tell us if it includes advancement of women and/or support of work/life programs in its partner compensation program?

Hats off to Fenwick & West!

Where Are Women in Law Firms?

2006-10-29T13:11:00.000-05:00

A new report from NAWL provides a good snapshot of where women are now in the legal profession. The report is available here, and the press relase here.

NAWL sent a survey to the 200 largest law firms in the U.S., and 103 responded. Based on those survey responses, NAWL reports that about half of associates are women, and women make up 28% of "of counsel," 26% of non-equity partners, 16% of equity partners, and 5% of managing partners.

To my knowledge, NAWL is the first group to study the number of women at the "of counsel" and non-equity partner levels. I find both of these numbers to be depressingly low (which isn't to say that I don't find the numbers of female equity partners and managing partners depressing, only that I expected the numbers to be considerably higher).

NAWL intends to update its data annually, which will allow us to see if the large firms are making any real progress in the areas of retaining and recruiting women. Given the astonishingly high attrition rate among associates today (78% by the end of their 5th year, according to NALP), I don't expect to see huge gains unless firms become more insightful and more proactive about keeping and advancing women.

New Report: "Opt Out" or Pushed Out?

2006-10-17T11:01:00.000-04:00

Many women doubt there is an "opt out revolution", and a new report posted on PAR's website proves their doubt is well-founded. The report, "Opt Out" or Pushed Out?: How the Press Covers Work/Family Conflict" shows that press reports of women choosing to stay home have made sweeping generalizations about female workers from very limited examples of women who are not representative of female workers as a whole. Equally importantly, the report presents hard evidence that women who leave the workforce for childcare reasons are more often pushed out of their jobs by inflexible schedules and inflexible workplaces.

The report is by Joan Williams, Jessica Manvell and Stephanie Bornstein of the Center for WorkLife Law. (PAR is an intiative of WorkLife Law.)

Job Satisfaction Blog for Lawyers

2006-09-14T09:47:00.000-04:00

The headline caught my eye: "55% of Men Would Take Less Pay for a Satisfying Job." The article is one of many work/life articles on a terrific blog for attorneys called JD Bliss. I've been reading the blog for a while now and have been remiss in waiting so long to talk about it.

JD Bliss was started by former big-firm litigator Joshua Fruchter. The blog's goal is "simple and focused," it says. It aims to "help attorneys leverage their JD degrees into satisfying careers, personal growth, and individual happiness." Of particular interest to us here at PAR, it provides a very useful round up of work/life balance articles, resources for work/life balance, and articles about firms that are trying to provide more balance for their attorneys. One of the more interesting features is a "Work Life Balance Calculator" that helps you to calculate, depressingly, the number of hours per week you spend working. I highly recommend reading JD Bliss on a regular basis.

Back to the headline about men: It refers to an article that appeared in Men's Journal, and while it does not focus specifically on attorneys, it is consistent with what we know about male attorneys' attitudes from other studies and from anecdotal evidence. PAR was one of the first to discuss men's needs for work/life balance, which have remained largely under wraps because men feel they cannot openly discuss them. Men often face a double stigma if they try to break out of the 80-hour a week SuperBiller mold -- they may be viewed (as are many women) as less than committed to their jobs, and additionally they may be viewed as less manly because they are stepping outside of traditional sex-based stereotypes if the "life" side of the balance equation includes caregiving. Happily, we are seeing the stigma lessen slightly for men in firms as more men reduce their hours and openly talk about their desires to have more family time or their responsibilities to care for aging parents.

Firms need to listen to these men, and to read between the lines when men leave the firm because "they've always wanted to teach" or "can't pass up this great opportunity to go in-house" -- work/life balance isn't just a women's issue.

--Cynthia

Excellent Report on Retention and Advancement of Women

2006-08-30T16:46:00.000-04:00

The Women's Bar Association of the District of Columbia had an Initiative on the Advancement and Retention of Women this past spring (see the Up To PAR blog archive for details about the Initiative).

The report of the Initiative is now available for free online at the WBA's website. It is very worthwhile reading, and PAR is proud to have been involved with the Initiative.

If you know of a bar association that has an initiative or similar program addressing the advancement and retention of women or work/life balance for attorneys, we'd appreciate it if you'd drop us a line and let us know. We are creating a list that we will make available on our website.

What Is It Really Like to Work Part-Time at a Firm?

2006-08-22T22:48:00.000-04:00

PAR is frequently asked by law students and attorneys looking to change firms which firms are best for attorneys who want to have a life outside the office and still be able to have a rewarding professional life inside the office.

Fortunately, we can often give some insider information, thanks to all the terrific attorneys who share their experiences with us.

We are now updating The Scoop, the section of our website that provides information about how part-time really works at various firms across the country. We have one section that provides a table showing the number of associates, counsel, and partners who work reduced hours, whether part-timers are eligible for partnership, etc. Some of this information comes from the firms themselves. We then have a link for each firm to a page with additional information -- some gathered from respected sources like NALP, some gathered from the Internet, and some gathered from reports from attorneys who work at the firms and just plain gossip.

If you would like to help us, please drop us a line at scoop@pardc.org and let us know the good, bad, and ugly of part-time work at your firm. If you work part-time, please let us know how it works for you. If you have decided not to work part-time, please tell us why. And if you've observed part-time work by others, that is good to know about, too.

You could really help us by sending emails to all your friends who are attorneys and ask them to also send us information about part-time work at their firms. The more responses we get, the more useful The Scoop will be.

Thanks!

--Cynthia

Firms Still on the Recruiting/Attrition Treadmill

2006-08-15T17:08:00.000-04:00

Natalie's post last week was so good that it is worth repeating. Consider this a p.s. to her 8/8/06 blog below.

An article on today’s law.com says that firms are having a harder time recruiting (“Law Firms Rework Campus Recruiting” by Leigh Jones, The National Law Journal, Aug. 15, 2006). Firms need more attorneys, and law school enrollment is down, the article says. So firms are changing their recruiting tactics – and the strategy some are choosing means that they’re trying to entice law students who are looking for a good quality of life by promising that they’ll make them work harder than ever.

Makes a lot of sense, right?

It is really true – Baker Botts reports that it is raising first years’ salaries to $140,000. Salary increases like that only exacerbate attrition, however – requiring firms to find even more attorneys to hire. Throwing money at associates will almost certainly mean that attorneys will have to work longer hours to cover the increase – the very thing attorneys do not want. As firms raise billable hour requirements, associates who want a life outside the office will raise up stakes and look for less demanding pastures.

Obviously, Baker Botts hopes to attract more applicants by getting in front of the pack in terms of salary. Whatever competitive recruiting advantage the salary raise gives them will vanish as all the firms match the higher salary – unless the firm raises salaries again.

The better way to attract and retain top talent is to offer attorneys the better quality of life they crave through balanced hours programs.

Research shows that for law students and laterals in the job market, work/life balance is one of the most important factors in choosing employers. According to Leigh Jones’s article, NALP reports that 78% of attorneys now leave their firms by their fifth year, and the inability to balance competing demands of work and personal obligations is frequently cited by attorneys as the reason they left their firms. This is true for both men and women. As Catalyst has reported, male and female attorneys report similar levels of work/life conflict. Moreover, an American Management Association survey of 352 companies that found employers reported more success in retaining employees by "giving them a life" than by offering more cash, according to Sue Shellenbarger of the The Wall Street Journal. Another study by Harris Interactive and the Radcliffe Public Policy Center found that slightly over 70 percent of men in their twenties and thirties said they would be willing to take lower salaries in exchange for more family time.

It would be so much cheaper to give associates time rather than money. As we set forth in Solving the Part-Time Puzzle: The Law Firm’s Guide to Balanced Hours, recruiting would be easier, attrition would go down, client relationships would stabilize, business development would improve, and productivity would increase.

There are a handful of firms that are leading the pack in terms of balanced hours. Kirkpatrick Lockhart and Dickstein are standouts. When laterals and law students call PAR and ask for the names of the best firms to work for, these are the types of firms they are looking for. I would be very surprised if they are having any difficulty with their recruiting.

-- Cynthia

Money Isn't Everything: Bigger Salaries Are Not the Solution to Law Firm Attrition

2006-08-08T15:59:00.000-04:00

As noted in BigLaw Associate Pay Surges in 2006 in today's New York Lawyer, the big firms have got it all wrong. While PAR is not opposed to raising salaries for junior associates who toil long hours at big law firms across the United States, throwing money at junior associates may get them in the law firm door, but it ultimately will not help firms keep them. In fact, as Ward Bower of Altman Weil points out in today's article, raising first-year salaries to $135,000 "can be ironically self-defeating." By compressing compensation for junior associates--i.e., mid-level associates are not receiving increases proportionate to what their beginning colleagues are making--the result is a "heightened incentive for new lawyers to use their hefty salaries to pay down debt quickly and bid adieu to a big firm after a few years."

Flexibility, work-life balance, and professional development are the keys to retention and what the new generation of lawyers is seeking. In PAR's view, if firms are looking for workhorses for a couple of years, then go ahead and raise salaries. Mission completed. If the goal, however, is to recruit and retain the talent in which the firm has heavily invested, then part of the equation must be the development of viable balanced hours programs that allow attorneys to have lives outside the office and maybe even some time to spend some of their six-figure incomes.

--Natalie

D.A. Rice’s Many Errors

2006-07-27T13:55:00.000-04:00

Part-Time ADAs Are Forced to Choose – Full-Time or No-Time (But D.A. Hopes to Create Second Class Track for Part-Timers in Future)

Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice had a choice, and she made a poor one. She chose to force the Office’s dozen part-time Assistant District Attorneys—all women, almost all mothers—to “choose” between their part-time schedules and their jobs. At last count, two had resigned, but first they brought the issue to the attention of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York (“WBASNY”).

WBASNY’s President Elaine Avery and local chapter president Helen Voutsinas met with D.A. Rice—the first woman ever elected to the office of District Attorney in Nassau County—to urge her to reconsider the policy, which is, according to Ms. Avery, “a decree ‘that sets us back 30 years’ on the issue of balancing a law career with family-friendly life choices.” (Robin Finn, New York Times, “Bad Example? Anti-Family? New-Wave D.A. Calls It Business”, July 22, 2006.) D.A. Rice, however, wouldn’t budge an inch, and so the bad press began. On July 9, 2006, a New York Times editorial, “A Woman’s Place,” criticized Rice’s policy, an article in the July 11th Newsday reported “Rice gets a scolding” by WBASNY.

In an article for Newsday, “Balancing justice against equality: Needs of working parents shouldn't outweigh the duty of Nassau County to protect the community” (July 10, 2006), D.A. Rice defended her position: “Simply put, criminals do not work part time; neither should prosecutors involved in investigations, trials or appeals.” D.A. Rice blames the County headcount system that limits the number of ADAs she can hire. She maintains that she is not “anti-family”—telling the New York Times that one ADA (of the 170 she employs) leaves every Thursday at 4 p.m. to coach Little League – or “anti-woman” pointing to the five women she has promoted to leadership positions since taking office six months ago. Needless to say, none of those women were working part-time.

And although D.A. Rice claims to be committed to “family-friendly policies for everyone,” she apparently doesn’t believe that any meaningful alternative work arrangements are consistent with the Office's mission. Rather than investigating ways to allow ADAs to work in the more prestigious, skill- and career-building departments—i.e., litigation, appeals, investigations—D.A. Rice instead is proposing what will essentially be a dead end, mommy track for part-timers. She told the Times that she “hopes to establish an Early Case Assessment Bureau by year’s end that will offer part-time positions.” ECAB—as it is known—is essentially the intake unit and, in some counties, is the means of building an ADA’s caseload. For example, in New York County, ADAs perform initial case assessments as police officers bring in arrest reports and witness statements to ECAB, determine the appropriate charges if any, and then prosecute the cases they “caught” during their ECAB shift. Presumably, if part-timers in Nassau County worked ECAB, they would not prosecute those cases, but would rather pass them along to full-time colleagues. Such limited positions would not allow part-time ADAs to continue developing professionally or to build careers as trial or appellate attorneys.

It seems that D.A. Rice has taken a very odd position as the leading female prosecutor in Long Island, NY, particularly because over the last twenty to thirty years, government attorneys have pioneered and even encouraged alternative work arrangements in the legal workplace. If federal and local prosecutor’s offices—including the neighboring Suffolk County D.A.’s office, where job-sharing for litigators has been working and another job-share position is beginning —can make part-time arrangements work, (see, e.g., Michael Scholl, New York Law Journal, "Under Fire, DA Defends Decision to Oust Female Part-Timers," July 13, 2006), why is it that D.A. Rice believed she had no other alternative than to demand that a dozen part-timers come back to work full-time or not at all?

What should D.A. Rice have done when she believed she needed more attorneys to prosecute crime more aggressively and found herself confronted with a an archaic system that counted part-time ADAs as if they worked full-time schedules?

D.A. Rice had a number of options. First of all, she is not the first administrator to be faced with a headcount system of assigning personnel (i.e., a department is allotted x number of warm bodies). PAR found a number of corporate law departments that faced similar obstacles to alternative work schedules when it did its Corporate Counsel study. Rather than eliminating all part-time positions, D.A. Rice could have advocated for her experienced, knowledgeable, and talented part-time litigators and shown the County that its headcount system is archaic and arguably has a disparate impact on women. She could have suggested to the County that it follow one of PAR's best practices recommendations and switch to a full-time equivalent system of assigning personnel (e.g., a part-time attorney would count for only a fraction of a worker, allowing the D.A. to hire additional attorneys). She could have enlisted the aid and support of the various women’s bar associations to apply their collective pressure on the County to change the mandate, but she did not.

Second, D.A. Rice could have asked the part-timers themselves to try to come up with other viable work day schedules – i.e., one where their days did not end at 2 pm (reportedly). She could have begun a dialogue with them, and asked them to investigate and propose alternative work arrangements that would better meet the needs of the Office, including, but not limited to, job-sharing proposals.

Finally, if D.A. Rice or the ADAs could not agree upon a viable reduced hours program, she could have worked with work-life consultants to make recommendations as to alternative work arrangements that might work better than the part-time arrangements that were being employed in her Office. D.A. Rice has reported that the part-timers were resented by their full-time counterparts, and in PAR’s experience, that’s a red flag that the part-time program (or former program) needs to be reorganized to be equitable and viable. For example, when only mothers are allowed to work reduced schedules, a part-time program is sure to draw fire from non-parents and from those who would like to limit the part-time program to an artificially finite period of time. (Some comments were made in the press that not all of these part-time ADAs were mothers of young children, evidencing an assumption that older children do not need as much parental attention as a toddler. Have these folks ever heard of drugs, smoking, sex, teen depression, teen suicide, college applications, teen rebellion generally? But that’s a topic for another blog.) When an us-versus-them situation is set up by the office, part-timers will continue to be stigmatized and ghettoized (i.e., placed in dead end career paths) by supervisors and colleagues who are working full-time.

Unlike traditional part-time programs that often create resentment among the full-timers who may be unfairly put upon, and a sense of being devalued among the part-timers who are stigmatized and prohibited from developing professionally, a “balanced hours” approach, such as PAR’s model, takes into account and balances the business needs of the employer—here, the Office and its constituents, the taxpayers of Nassau County—with the individual attorneys’ needs for work-life balance regardless of their gender or the reason for requesting a reduced schedule.

As the District Attorney, D.A. Rice not only has a responsibility to the taxpayers of Nassau County, but like any managing partner, also has the responsibility to her employees. If she wants to keep and to continue attracting talented attorneys (a benefit to her constituents), she will have to do more than promote a “few good women” to top positions. She will have to find viable solutions to allow her ADAs to have greater work-life balance when and if they need or desire it. D.A. Rice must set the tone from the top, and right now, the clear message she’s sending is that it isn’t worth her time to investigate viable, career-enhancing solutions for attorneys who cannot work full-time whatever the reason. I certainly hope that D.A. Rice—who is currently single and childless—doesn’t ever experience a family crisis, a long-term illness of a parent or significant other, or otherwise need some flexibility to achieve work-life balance during her career.

So far D.A. Rice has chosen to take her Office further into the dark ages rather than to demand that the County examine its outdated mandate and move forward into the 21st century. Had she done the latter, she would have had WBASNY and the various women’s committees and sections of the other bar associations applauding her, rather than at odds with her today. PAR agrees with WBASNY and would urge D.A. Rice to emerge from the dark ages and see the light—there are viable, career-building alternative work schedules that would be consistent with the Office’s mission. Prohibiting all part-time or limiting part-timers to ECAB is not part of the solution and will not further women in the law no matter how many individual women are promoted.

-- Natalie

Blogging World Abuzz as Attorney Mom is Fired

2006-07-17T23:08:00.000-04:00

Denise Howell, a very experienced intellectual property attorney who was one of the first legal bloggers (she is credited with coining the word "blawg"), has been fired from her firm, Reed Smith. You can read her blawg post about her firing here.

She says she can't talk publicly about her firing, but she makes it clear that workplace inflexibility (she has a young child) played a part. It appears that she had been working part-time, and it also appears that Reed Smith's part-time policy wasn't working too well.

In her post, Denise makes several excellent points: part-time policies are "merely a good start" (PAR wrote whole chapters in its Solving the Part-Time Puzzle book on implementing part-time policies so as to avoid stigmatization and other ills that undermine well-intentioned policies); part-time schedules can be career-enders (see PAR's first report on stigma); firms need to have a "Chief Work/Life Balance Officer" to oversee their programs (absolutely! Dickstein Shapiro was the first firm we know of to appoint a "part-time coordinator", which was the model for PAR's best practice of appointing a "Balanced Hour Coordinator"; Kirkpatrick Lockhart took extended this idea by appointing a Director of Professional and Personal Life Integration and a balanced hour coordinator); firms need to offer a variety of types of flexibility (again, agreed: PAR has long advocated that flexible work should be available to everyone but that firms should individually tailor each person's schedule); and firms should take a long-term view when considering attorneys' needs for flexibility, looking at what attorneys can contribute over the course of their careers and not just in the immediate future (we're in complete agreement; see our "business case" discussion in Solving the Part-Time Puzzle).

I don't know if Denise knows about PAR's work, but we certainly seem to be on the same page when it comes to thinking about law firm management.

Several bloggers have expressed their outrage over Denise's firing, including Dennis Kennedy, Jeneane Sessum, Gerry Riskin, and Ross Runkel. Everyone is puzzled by a firm's decision to let go someone of Denise's caliber.

I wish I could say that Denise is unique, but she is only visible. Almost every week, PAR hears from another mother-attorney who has been let go or has seen the writing on the walls and knows it is time to paste a smile on her face and tell everyone that she really wants to spend some time at home with her little ones. Some sue, and some win, but most go quietly. I applaud Denise's decision to go as public as she could with her story -- the more attorneys speak up, the more quickly change will happen.

One place attorneys can speak up is on PAR's website. We're revamping "The Scoop" -- a treasure trove of information about what it is really like to work a flexible schedule at particular firms. Please send us your information (all information is posted anonymously) about your firm so attorneys changing firms can get accurate information and so firms can get valuable feedback on how they're doing. Send to scoop@pardc.org.

We just got some information for the page about Reed Smith...

Got Kids? Savvy Clients Care

2006-04-28T12:10:00.000-04:00

Some female clients are all business – apparently, this is considered news because of their gender. In “Got Kids? These Clients Don’t Care,” (Kellie Schmitt, The Recorder, April 26, 2006), two female in-house attorneys were quoted as saying that they want their female outside counsel to give them 100% of their attention and to refrain from discussing their kids. One of them harshly says that she doesn’t care if an attorney has a family crisis, she just wants the work the attorney is doing for her to get done. After all, she says, outside counsel are just commodities that she wants to be able to call at home or during a soccer game or whenever, and she doesn’t care about having a relationship with them.

So, should female attorneys in law firms go back to the days of trying to hide their personal lives and trying to pretend that they share the same privileged status as men who have wives taking care of the home front?

Not a chance. First, these client comments have to be put in perspective. One of the in-house counsel attempts to explain her impatience with attorney mothers by saying she came of age in the law when it wasn’t cool to have kids. PAR’s Joan Williams responds in the article that there is “‘a generation gap between baby boomers who played by the old rules and Gen X men and women who want to establish new rules.’” Research and experience show this is clearly the case.

Moreover, these clients represent a minority view. Most clients want long-standing and stable relationships with their outside counsel. As PAR heard again and again in its Better on Balance? study, in-house attorneys are fed up with high attrition in law firms because of the loss of historical perspective, institutional knowledge, and personal relationships when an attorney leaves and the effort and expense involved in getting new attorneys up to speed. In-house attorneys support lawyers in law firms having balanced lives and try to respect their time outside the office, because they realize that to do otherwise is to help open the exit door for them. In other words, savvy clients who want to maximize efficiency and minimize costs in their outside legal work try not to exacerbate the pressures that force law firm attorneys to leave.

Let’s not be mad at these clients because they aren’t acting “nice” and “warm” the way stereotypes of women dictate they should. Let’s be mad at them instead for treating other human beings as mere commodities that have to respond to snapping fingers night and day. Let’s be mad at them for undermining attorneys’ attempts to achieve work/life balance and for making life outside law firms look more attractive. Let’s be mad at them for treating women differently from men (if, as we suspect, they are – would the tell a male attorney who had a heart attack that they didn’t care and they just want their work to get done?).

And let’s just realize that some women, like some men, are all business and treat them accordingly without letting their constricted views spill over into our other relationships.

New Partner Classes: Good News and Bad News

2006-03-31T20:52:00.000-05:00

It is time once again to look at the new partner classes at law firms (U.S. offices only) and see how the women are doing. The good news is that an increasing number of firms have new partner classes that are 25 - 33% female. The bad news is that those percentages are still smaller than the percentage of women entering firms (close to 50% of new associates are female at most firms), and too many firms still have new partner classes with few or no women attorneys. Remember, this is not a pipeline issue: since 1985, law schools have been graduating classes that are 40% or more female, and women and men enter law firms as new associates in roughly equal numbers. If the women aren't staying at the firms long enough to make partner, the issue isn't the pipeline but rather the culture at the law firms.

So, who is doing more than talk when it comes to advancing women attorneys? Here is a list first of firms that are to be commended for their efforts:

Top honors go to Gibson Dunn (4 of 6 new partners are female, for 66%); Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe (5 of 9 new partners are female, for 55%), Thelen, Reid & Priest (4 of 8 new partners are female, for 50%), Thompson & Knight (5 of 10 new partners are female, for 50%), and Dickstein, Shapiro, Morin & Oshinsky (2 of 4 new partners are female, for 50%, and both of the new female partners have worked alternative schedules).

Reed Smith: 10 of 24 new partners are female

Cleary, Gottlieb: 2 of 5 new partners are female

Venable: 5 of 12 new partners are female

DLA Piper: 13 of 34 new partners are female

Weil, Gotschal: 4 of 10 new partners are female

Baker Botts: 4 of 10 new partners are female

Bryan Cave: 4 of 10 new partners are female

Cadwalader: 2 of 5 new partners are female

Baker Hostetler: 9 of 22 new partners are female

Arent Fox: 6 of 14 new partners are female

Also rans for the commendable efforts list:

McGuire Woods: 5 of 14 new partners are female

Howrey Simon: 5 of 13 new partners are female

And who is still just wringing their hands, bemoaning the fact that there just aren't any women in their firms ready to be promoted to partnership?

Womble Carlyle: 0 of 9 new partners are women

White & Case: 0 of 9 new partners are women

Holland and Hart: 0 of 4 new partners are women

Shearman & Sterling: 0 of 4 new partners are women

Chadbourne: 0 of 2 new partners are women

Dewey Ballantine: 0 of 4 new partners are women

Also having trouble finding qualified women:

Fulbright & Jaworsky: 1 of 9 new partners is female

Shook, Hardy, and Bacon: 1 of 12 new partners is female

Haynes & Boone: 1 of 10 new partners is female

Milbank: 1 of 7 new partners is female

Drinker Biddle: 1 of 7 new partners is female

Dechert: 2 of 12 new partners are female

As always, let me know any encouraging or discouraging partner class news we should include in this space.