New England Biz Law Update
A recent list touting law firms for progressive “women-friendly” work policies has garnered an equal measure of praise and criticism.
Working Mother magazine recently listed the 50 best law firms for women based on a 500-question survey answered by 90 law firms around the country. The survey was sent to 200 law firms in total.
The questionnaire asked the law firms about programs they have in place that support, promote and retain women attorneys at their firms.
But critics claim the results are skewed because the law firms themselves responded to the survey – not individual female attorneys working at the firms who are perhaps best-equipped to say whether the policies are effective.
Experts who have written on women’s career issues in the legal profession say the 50 Best list flies in the face of their findings based on extensive interviews with and surveys of women lawyers.
The 50 Best list is the brainchild of Deborah Epstein Henry, a commercial litigator and founder of Flex-Time Lawyers, which consults with law firms on work-life and women’s issues.
The criticisms aren’t new to Henry. She told In-House that she had similar concerns before approaching Working Mother about working together on the 50 Best list.
Henry said she wondered if the survey was the right way to celebrate firms for the strides they have made, and whether law firms would point to the list as a reason to be complacent.
In the end, Henry said she decided it was worth it, mainly because fierce competition among law firms would be “an instrument of change.”
She explained: “You get firms more informed about what competitors are doing. That’s how change happens in the legal field.”
Walking the talk
The survey assessed six areas:
Survey results were scored with an algorithm that assigned different weights to specific sections and questions. The 50 winning firms had the top scores.
Written policies allowing flex-time or reduced-hours arrangements was the common denominator among the winning firms. These policies generally allow lawyers to work at a percentage of the firm’s target billable hour level. Salaries are prorated, and working reduced hours does not knock the attorney off the partnership track.
Some firms have had the policies for decades, while others formalized their arrangements only recently.
Boston-based Mintz Levin, which is included in the 50 Best list, began its first flex-time arrangement in 1984. When Chérie Kiser, now head of the diversity committee and managing partner of the firm’s Washington, D.C. office, joined the firm in 1994, she recalls being struck by the openness to flex-time arrangements, which were uncommon at the time.
Many of 50 Best firms do not require attorneys to return to full-time to make partner. Mintz Levin has equity and income partners both working flex-time, and Womble Carlyle recently promoted two reduced-schedule female attorneys to partner.
To be considered for equity partnership at Baker & Daniels in Indianapolis, though, lawyers must be working full-time, said Ellen Boshkoff, who coordinates the flex-time program at the firm.
Firm representatives emphasized how genuinely they want attorneys to take advantage of these policies.
“If [the CEO] needs a little behavior modification with people not as readily supportive, he’s willing to do that and reaffirm the commitment to making this policy work,” said Maureen McGinnity, chief diversity partner at Foley & Lardner, which was named to the 50 Best list. “Adopting the policy is the simple part. [Assuring] people it’s safe to utilize the policy, persuading partners and other leaders that it’s advantageous to the firm, is a long-term education effort.”
Of the nearly 1,000 attorneys at Foley & Lardner, which is based in Milwaukee, approximately 65 are working reduced-time schedules.
Firms also heralded other programs in place for women.
At Mintz Levin, female attorneys meet regularly to discuss issues specific to them, according to Kiser. The firm has panel discussions for women about marketing strategies and work-life balance. The firm also has mentoring program specific to women, she added.
North Carolina-based Womble Carlyle offers a back-up child care program in partnership with a local day care center. If the primary caregiver isn’t available, the local day care center allows the child to be dropped off for the day.
Foley & Lardner sends a diverse mix of attorneys to speaking engagements, McGinnity said, to ensure a wide range of the firm’s lawyers gets the chance to develop business contacts.
Similarly, Armstrong Teasdale in St. Louis brings in an outside coach to help female attorneys with their business development skills. “The way to succeed in large law firms is to generate business,” said Tessa Trelz, director of the firm’s program devoted to professional advancement of women. “We wanted to make sure our women lawyers have all the tools to help them become the business generators they want to become.”
Bingham McCutchen has support groups for associates who are parents. Partners attend if invited and feel they can do so in a supportive capacity, said Julia Frost-Davies, co-chair of the diversity committee. The firm, based in Boston, also offers brown bag lunch talks on issues such as positive discipline for children and financial planning for new parents.
Firms measure success in a variety of ways, but mostly by what they see walking the halls.
“If we’re able to retain the people we like to retain, we consider that a success,” said Boshkoff of Baker & Daniels, echoing similar sentiments of her counterparts at other firms.
Another measure is how flex-time policies have evolved.
Baker & Daniels, according to Boshkoff, used to limit the number of years an attorney could spend on flex-time, but has since discarded that rule. “We realize that a lot of times it’s a long-term situation for somebody. You don’t work reduced hours for two years then come back,” she said.
Success stories
For the last six years, Beth Felder has worked 80 percent of the 1,850 billable hours target at Foley & Lardner. The firm’s flex-time policy has worked for her, even if there are weeks she works many more hours than normal in her practice, which includes venture capital financing, private equity financing, mergers and acquisitions and general corporate advice.
“I didn’t go to flex-time until I’d been working almost a decade,” Felder said. “For me, that may have made a difference. I don’t think you need to work many years, but I think you need to have some under your belt. Most people in my office understand my schedule. I leave early on Friday afternoons. I still do good work, still run my deals. That kind of stuff hasn’t suffered at all. A lot of clients are not even familiar with the fact that I’m on flex-time.”
Since her daughter was born in 2003, Catherine Meeker of Baker & Daniels has worked 85 percent of her target billable hours and has earned prorated credit toward partnership.
“Realistically, if I were going to come into this with the mindset that I’d only work certain hours each day or I can’t travel, I don’t think I could do the cases that I do,” she said.
Since returning from maternity leave following the birth of her second child, Meeker has conducted two trials this year. “You can’t do that working a six-hour day. It just doesn’t work,” she said.
Siobahn Mee, a litigator at Bingham McCutchen, said a flex-time schedule can work, even with a demanding practice area.
“I’m in the office usually four days a week, and I try to keep my hours to roughly eight to five. I can get home, take care of my family responsibilities, and hang out with the kids for a couple hours, and put them to bed. Then I hop online and take care of what I need to take care of that day,” Mee said.
But maybe the grass isn’t greener …
Critics say the Working Mother survey doesn’t give a true accounting of what it’s like to be a woman at a large law firm.
“I think that when the only thing you’re doing is having firms self-report, obviously every firm is promoting itself and glossing over the bad part,” said Lindsay Blohm, co-author of Presumed Equal: What America’s Top Women Lawyers Really Think about Their Firms.
Lauren Stiller Rikleen, executive director of Bowditch Institute for Women’s Success and author of Ending the Gauntlet: Removing Barriers to Women’s Success in the Law, interviewed many of the firms that participated in the survey.
“There’s a disconnect between a lot of the information I was given and the statistics [in the survey]. I suspect if you interviewed women directly, either who are at the firm or who recently left, you may see some variances.”
In their survey of some 4,000 women attorneys at firms across the country, Blohm and co-author Ashley Riviera found many were dissatisfied.
“If you have a part-time program, people were not satisfied. Either it didn’t work, or the firm didn’t promote it, or people didn’t think it was viable even if the firm touted it,” Blohm said.
Rikleen’s research uncovered corresponding attitudes among her sources that were supported by the results of surveys by other organizations.
For example, Rikleen’s research and a survey by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York found that while women approached their careers with more focus after becoming parents, their colleagues assumed they were less committed.
Two other studies, one of attorneys in Colorado and another by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, found working mothers are held to a higher standard than working fathers – even as they are criticized for their lack of commitment both to home and the firm.
Further, Rikleen wrote in her book that a study by the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts found 43 percent of its respondents reported a significant change in their work assignments after going to a reduced work schedule.
For her book, Rikleen interviewed a woman who said a partner told her she should have waited to have children until after she became partner. Another said talk of a family in the future caused the partners around her to panic, and one continually asked her when she planned to start a family.
According to an unpublished 2005 opinion of the 4th Circuit, a former Mintz Levin attorney, Dawn Gallina, sued for retaliation after she was fired for complaining about a male partner. The partner, after discovering Gallina had a young child, became verbally abusive toward her, made references to work commitment differences between men and women, and suggested that it’s harder for women attorneys to balance work and family, according to the 4th Circuit’s opinion.
The court upheld a jury verdict for Gallina against the firm.
A number of anonymous blog postings on the Working Mother website question the survey findings.
“When I read that my firm made the list, I realized that there had to be something wrong with the methodology,” wrote someone identified as “laywermom.”
“You do a disservice to young women allowing them to believe that these firms are supportive of working mothers simply because they have good benefits on paper,” the posting continued.
Six other posts were equally critical of their firms’ practices in the face of their policies, and were concerned the methodology was doing more harm than good to the industry.
Henry was empathetic with critics of the survey.
“The voices of the lawyers who are dissatisfied with the survey for one reason or another, that’s my constituency because that’s my perspective. I had a number of reservations largely articulated by the blog entries,” Henry told In-House.
But the survey nonetheless serves a vital purpose, Henry said.
“We really want to recognize firms that are beginning to make strides in this area. It’s starting point. It reflects there’s a lot more work to be done.”
According to Henry, following the publication of survey results many firms have asked for more information about programs they don’t have – such as formal reentry initiatives for women returning from maternity leave.
