Best Firms for Women

The results are in. Working Mother Magazine and Flex-Time Lawyers have released their second annual report on the top 50 best law firms for women. As I've written in the past, I do believe that rankings should be kept in perspective. Large law firms are complex institutions that offer many different realities to individual attorneys (i.e. depending on which office you work in, which department you work for, what deals or litigation matters you get staffed on, how busy your practice area may be, the personalities of the partners you report to, etc.)

Over time, look for the firms that appear on these lists year after year. Appearing once means something. Appearing consistently is worth noting.

One partner's thoughts on balancing motherhood with law firm life

I first stumbled across Kathleen J. Wu's article in the Texas Lawyer almost two months ago. In the article, Wu, a partner with large law firm Andrews & Kurth, was curious as to the effect that now larger law firm salaries would have on practicing attorney mothers in Texas. As she notes, female attorneys understand that there will be have to be some kind of sacrifice to earn their new higher salaries.

What was so striking to me was that Wu, herself a partner with many professional accolades to her name, had no easy answers for women "trying to have it all." She acknowledges that she has no better answers for female attorneys striving to strike a professional balance with motherhood than she did twenty years ago.

But she is trying. And she wants to have answers.

She notes the increasing proliferation of women's initiatives in law firms and speculates that the market will demand reconciliation between these two competing interests. Like Wu, I hear a lot of about women's initiatives, but I have yet to hear much about its practical execution.

Working Mother Survey is Out

The first annual survey of the Best Law Firms for Working Mothers is now on the newsstands. This survey, which was a collaboration between Flex-Time Lawyers and Working Mother Magazine attempts to hold law firms accountable for their practices. As always, I think it is important to view these lists with a healthy dose of skepticism. Firms can very greatly by office and department. Also, your destiny rests a lot on who you report to (and how enthusiastic they are about the firm's great work/life initiatives.)

In other words, don't take a firm's appearance on one of these lists as conclusive proof that you will be able to achieve the balance that you want.

By the same token, I do think it is great that the issue of work/life balance is getting such good publicity. Every bit of discourse helps and I'm happy to see the issue front and center in a respected publication. Presumably, this will be picked up by a lot of news outlets.

Women Are "Staying" in Droves

Almost 80% of women who leave law firm practice end up staying in or returning to the workforce; and more than 50% of them stay in the legal profession. In other words, female attorneys are not leaving either the workforce or the profession to be stay at home moms. But they are opting out of law firm practice at far greater rates than men. As a result, although men and women have been graduating from law school at equal rates for the past 15 years, women still only account for 17% of the partners in law firms. Those are some of the key findings of a new study just completed by the MIT Workplace Center . Robert Ambrogi of the Law.Com Blog Network writes about the study here .

Yesterday, I attended a reception at the Federal Courthouse in Boston where Mona Harrington of MIT did a great job of presenting the results of her research. Judge Nancy Gertner, who was a major catalyst behind the study, and Lauren Rikleen, past president of the Boston Bar Association and author of a terrific book on how law firms can begin to address the lack of female advancement in the legal profession (Ending the Gauntlet: Removing Barriers to Women's Success in the Law) also gave articulate presentations which quickly went to the heart of the issue (i.e. that law firms can do a lot more to promote the advancement of women.)

Afterwards, I received an e-mail message from Sheila Statlender, a clinical psychologist in Newton, Massachusetts who sits with me on the BBA Standing Committee on Work/Life Balance. She also attended the session and had some interesting things to say. Here are some excerpts from an e-mail she sent to the members of our committee:

Findings which indicate that female attorneys are not opting out, but rather finding work outside of law firms, and in astonishingly high percentages at every stage (associate, partner, etc.) provide important documentation, and refutation for those claiming that women really are just "choosing" to be stay-at-home moms.

OK, I admit it - at first I thought - this is not new news. We've been hearing it and saying it for quite a while. Women aren't progressing in their career paths and are earning significantly less than their male counterparts. "Opaque" discrimination now makes it harder to identify factors such as less desirable work assignments, inferior mentoring and tougher challenges with regard to business development. This doesn't seem so much a wake up call, as it does a signal from the "snooze alarm:" we've heard it before, and now it's blaring again. But we also know that change happens slowly, especially in large, powerful and at heart conservative organizations (like law firms). So I say bravo to those of you who continue to reset the alarm, letting it blast, rather than simply shutting it off.

I do have a question for Lauren especially: you really are calling for in essence a revolution in the legal profession: an overhaul of how firms handle compensation, what kinds of professional practice and activities will get acknowledged in terms of the bottom line, and along with this, a necessary shift in the values which underlie these practices. What kind of response are you getting from your audiences, from firms, from individuals? Is anyone hearing and responding? Can you give us some hope here?

I couldn't help but think, as I listened to the presentations yesterday, of comparisons with other professional fields. Physicians, for example (female and male alike) are standing by as more and more of their professional freedoms are slipping away. Health insurers are dictating reimbursement and even basic medical practice. It has occurred to me that many professionals are in the position that factory workers found themselves in in previous decades - only factory workers formed unions and were able to go on strike. They found ways to take back or establish power (ok, maybe I'm idealizing a bit). Can anything comparable be done in the current arena(s)?

Since I am sharing my morning musings and subjecting you all to some stream of consciousness (except for those of you who may have had the wisdom to hit the "delete" button already :-) I'll take it one step further. I fantasized about a walk out of female attorneys, hopefully accompanied by their male supporters - perhaps only an hour or two in length, to protest current conditions and to express support for the ideas/strategies proposed at yesterday's briefing. Or an all day conference, a sort of pre-planned walkout, filled with workshops on getting better asssignments, business development, the work-life continuum (I agree with Lauren that "balance" is not a realistic term!), self-care, etc. - not held on the weekend, but pointedly during the workday.

How to get a family-friendly position at a large firm

In the years that I have been engaged in legal recruiting, I have worked with several really top-notch female candidates that wanted to return to an exciting practice within a large firm after having a baby, but did NOT want the hours associated with a full-time partnership track position. I relate to these women who "want it all," for I myself want a rigorous and stimulating job, but also want to spend quality time with my child. It is a delicate balancing act.

For all of the media attention that the firms try to gain for proclaiming their family-friendly atmospheres, they rarely advertise part-time or reduced billable hour positions. These positions are usually found through back door methods (for example, a friend at a firm) and my experiences in placing these women have only confirmed my suspicions that female-friendly (i.e., family-friendly) large law firms are difficult to come by.

I have, in fact, placed and gotten offers for women with reduced work schedules. But the interview process is tricky. In order to successfully negotiate, these women had to interview as if they wanted a full-time position, then sit back and wait for an offer. Then once the offer was in hand, they negotiated their hours. Simply put, they had to make the firms believe they were indispensable before they showed all their cards.

Hillary Mantis at vault.com has some interesting thoughts on family-friendly options. I am also curious to hear from women who have successfully found family-friendly attorney positions after having a baby. Feel free to add your comments.

ROI for Work Life Balance Programs

JD Bliss links to an article in Computerworld on work life balance and suggests that lawyers should bring this article to the attention of senior management at their firms.

Computerworld does do an excellent job of laying out the traditional business case for allowing flexible staffing (the high cost of replacing employees who leave, the positive impact on morale at firms that offer flexibility, the institutional knowledge that stays with the firm, the increased productivity of happier employees.) But the article focuses mainly on the IT profession. I would imagine that senior partners at many major firms would find ways to distinguish the practice of law.

The business case for allowing flexible work arrangements in the law is similar to the IT profession. But the attorney/client relationship is often a more personal relationship and anyone arguing that flexible staffing makes business sense in a law firm must also address the issue of client service (i.e. how to ensure that clients who are paying top dollar are getting the high level of customer service and the high quality of legal representation that they expect.)

Certainly law firms can save on recruiting and training if they find creative ways to reduce turnover. However, they also need to be more creative about finding ways to staff deals and litigation matters in a way that ensures the client always has access to a professional that he or she trusts.

Weil Gotshal Creates "Flex-time Partners"

Who would have guessed? Maybe large firms are finally getting worried about retaining talent.

Canadian Lawyers Resist Flexible Schedules

JD Bliss reports on a Catalyst of Canada study demonstrating that large numbers of Canadian lawyers who opt for flexible work arrangements believe that these arrangements have a negative career impact. Only 31% of women believe that choosing an alternative path will not have a negative impact. The problem is less accute for men (60% do not think that choosing a flexible path will have a negative impact.)

Dealing With Distractions When Working From Home

RainToday.Com has a good article on how to work more effectively from a home office. I followed most of these suggestions for the eight years I worked worked from home. My conclusion after reading the article: I would have been even more productive had I done everything on the list.

Hope for Part-Time Opportunities?

Is it really possible for large firm attorneys to work part-time and still get the brass ring? Are there models for successful part-time arrangements at the nation's top firms? Here are some examples; though I wonder if this article isn't sugar coating things a little. Do these women really work part-time? Do they simply not sleep (or not make any time for their own personal needs--beyond caregiving for their families?) I wonder!

Ending the Gauntlet--Book Review

The Boston Globe gives a positive review to Lauren Rikleen's book on the challenges that women face in trying to advance in the practice of law. But the reviewer seems to think that the author holds no hope for the practice of law. IMHO, the reviewer overstates the case. Rikleen does paint a somewhat bleak picture of the state of affairs for women in the legal profession; but I don't think her message is one of defeat.

More on Women and the Lack of Advancement

Here is a nice summary of some of the recent articles on women and the challenges they face in trying to advance at top law firms. Here the author emphasizes the problem of billable hours as a measure of one's contribution to a firm.