Bright Spot: Firms that Are “Tipping the Scales” In Favor of Women Partners
In an effort to inform and inspire our members and friends, we often share diversity and flexibility Bright Spots – those small or large successes that impact an organization in a positive way. We believe that important diversity and flexibility initiatives can truly impact your organization’s bottom line, recruitment and retention capabilities and employee satisfaction.
Law Firms that Are “Tipping the Scales” With 50% or More Women in Their 2019 New Partner Class
BRIGHT SPOT
At our 2019 Annual Conference, we recognized fifty-one law firms for having 50% or more women in their 2019 U.S.-based new partner class. The firms, recognized as “Tipping the Scales,” were identified through our New Partner Report, a compilation of public data and self-reported sources released each year for the past eight years. The Report revealed that 41.3 percent of new partners in 138 major U.S. law firms in 2019 were women, surpassing last year’s mark by 2.4 percentage points. The Executive Summary is publicly available here.
The “Tipping the Scales” firms recognized for having 50% or more women in their 2019 new partner class included:
1. Akerman
2. Alston & Bird
3. Arent Fox
4. Arnold & Porter
5. Ballard Spahr
6. Boies Schiller Flexner
7. Bracewell
8. Cahill Gordon & Reindel
9. Cravath, Swaine & Moore
10. Crowell & Moring
11. Davis Polk & Wardwell
12. Davis Wright Tremaine
13. Debevoise & Plimpton
14. Dentons
15. Dickinson Wright
16. Drinker Biddle & Reath
17.
Bright Spot: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Billable Hours
In an effort to inform and inspire our members and friends, we often share diversity and flexibility Bright Spots – those small or large successes that impact an organization in a positive way. We believe that important diversity and flexibility initiatives can truly impact your organization’s bottom line, recruitment and retention capabilities and employee satisfaction.
BRIGHT SPOT – Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Billable Hours
Recent Bright Spots in the legal community are new Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Hours Policies implemented by several law firms in which employees can accrue billable hours towards their annual target by participating in efforts that advance DE&I.
Some examples of projects that may qualify for DE&I billable hours include:
IMPACT
We are happy to report that we’ve seen a very positive Ripple Effect to these new policies and many firms are now jumping on the DE&I billable hours bandwagon. Examples of firms that have instituted a DE&I billable hours policy include (but are not limited to): Ogletree Deakins, Davis Wright Tremaine, Cooley and Hogan Lovells, as well as one of the early pioneers of this trend Dorsey & Whitney who implemented their policy in 2019.
It’s important to note that Reed Smith seems to be one of the first firms to extend their policy to its business professionals.