Partnership Odds for Women

Here are three questions to ask recruiters if you plan on being a female associate at a law firm: what percentage of the firms' equity partners are women? What percentage of newly named partners have been women in the last five years? And, what are you doing to raise those numbers?

 Weil Gotshal claims that 50% of the associates who have been promoted to partners in the last five years are women. Given that law schools[1] and associate pools are near gender parity, this promotional statistic should not be exceptional. But when compared against female partnership rates as low as 7% at some major law firms,[2] or even Weil's own overall rate of 19% female partners,[3] this self-proclaimed equality is quite an accomplishment. Even setting aside the question of whether these female partners were bona-fide, equity-track rainmakers (as opposed to partners-in-name-only),[4] the promise of 50% was enough to catch my interest.

To learn more I attended a recruiting event hosted by the women of Weil in Washington, D.C. I spoke with junior associates, and female partner and their diversity manager and the message they delivered was that if you want to become a partner as a woman in a litigation firm, you have to be a bit creative-especially if you have any interest in having a family.

The associates noted that you should not expect a great work-life balance at any top-tier firm. They focused on bringing creativity to their work. One associate quipped, "if there was caselaw on point, they wouldn't hire Weil." The cases are complex and the issues are novel enough to lend themselves to endless analysis with no clear answers. Add in the grueling travel schedule of depositions and the endless string of emergency deadlines that populate litigation, and it's easy to see why these young associates didn't have much to say about work-life balance.

Instead, they kicked me over to a litigation partner and mother of three. This spirited woman again stressed creativity.  She stated that there was no formula for work-life balance; each lawyer had to resolve the issue for herself. While I don't support the individualization of social problems,[1] her experience was both telling and helpful. Less than a week after her first child was born, an emergency deposition requiring cross-country travel shortened her maternity leave. First, she thought she faced a Hobson's choice: abandon the case she had poured so much energy into or abandon her newborn. Then, she negotiated a novel solution by taking her infant and requesting a temporary nurse who would be housed, flown and compensated to care for the infant at the firm's expense during the deposition. Did the partner have to work a double shift? Yes. But by speaking up and demanding the tools she needed to get her work done, she and her firm both benefitted.

As the diversity director noted to me on my way out, this is the type of creativity that is needed, from both attorneys and their firms, to bolster the number of women at the top of the profession.

[1] http://www.lawschool.com/femalemajority.htm

[2] Wachtell, Lipton in NY. http://www.betterlegalprofession.org/Wachtell

[3] http://www.betterlegalprofession.org/WeilGotshal

[4] http://ms-jd.org/library/nonequity-partnership-flawed-solution-disproportionate-advancement-women-private-law-firms

Building a Better Legal Profession (BBLP) is an organization based at Stanford Law School.   BBLP is a national grassroots movement that seeks market-based workplace reforms in large private law firms. For more information, visit BBLP's Web site at www.betterlegalprofession.org.

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