2011 Signals Bad News for Female Attorneys' Partnership Prospects

It's hardly shocking news that fewer women are among law firm partnership ranks than men. But the American Lawyer is reporting that partnership prospects for women dropped even more in 2011. Based on new research from the Project for Attorney Retention ("PAR"),

[I]t appears that the spread is growing -- new male partners outnumbered new female partners more than 2-to-1 this year, PAR reports. Even more discouraging is the fact that the number of promotions of women has fallen year over year. The promotion rate of women at the 123 large law firms surveyed fell 2 percentage points this year, from 34 percent to 32 percent.

As PAR's executive director Manar Morales points out, this two percent drop-while it may seem minor-is actually quite significant given the already-low number of female partners. In fact numerous firms-such as Davis Polk, Hunton & Williams, Lowenstein Sandler and Sheppard Mullin-didn't welcome any female attorneys to their partnerships in 2011. Further the American Lawyer notes that "Milbank and Lowenstein have not promoted a single woman associate in the past three years, according to PAR's previous reports; Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft and Kaye Scholer promoted no women in two out of the past three years." 

Read the full post by Mary Kate Sheridan on Vault.com.

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