American Lawyer has released another report that shows that while women make up a significant percentage of Biglaw associates, they are under-represented in law firm partnership ranks:
And while the ranks of female partners have grown steadily, women still account, on average, for fewer than one in five big-firm partners. The greatest numbers of female lawyers remain concentrated at the associate level.
At the same time, it’s worth pointing out the wide variation among firms when it comes to female head count. Despite the laggards, some firms–such as Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; and Ropes & Gray–are nearing the 50 percent mark in their overall percentage of women lawyers. Even better, at a few other large firms–including Littler Mendelson, Ice Miller, Arent Fox, and Epstein Becker & Green–women make up at least a quarter of the partnership.
The disparity is most clearly seen when we talk about leverage:
Crunching the numbers further tells a more interesting story. Of the female lawyers we counted, what percentage are partners? In other words, are women reaching the senior levels of a firm in proportion to their overall numbers? To find out, we calculated the number of female partners as a percentage of all women lawyers. We found that at the firms surveyed, about 23 percent of female lawyers were in the partnership ranks. For every women who’s made partner, there are three women in the nonpartner ranks.
That 3:1 leverage among female lawyers is double the leverage among all lawyers–male and female–in the firms surveyed. Nationally, we found that 41 percent of all lawyers are partners: For each partner, there are about 1.5 nonpartners. If one looks just at male lawyers, the leverage essentially vanishes: There is about one male nonpartner for each male partner.
The report also exposes a somewhat obvious fact: firms that tend to be good for female attorneys don’t necessarily score highly on other diversity factors.
More details from the report after the jump.
Continue reading “Women in Law: Crunching the Numbers”
As the temperature rises, so does the desire to embrace informal summer fashions. Women are breaking out their strapless dresses and short skirts, and men are starting to sport shorts. While casual summer wear is fine on the weekends, don’t yield to the temptation to wear your flip flops to your white shoe firm.
Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle conveyed that message to its New York office with a memo sent out last week. In its e-mail making the case for “business casual,” the firm reminded associates that pecs are not to be admitted into evidence:
By all means resist the urge to acquaint us with your chest hair. If you think it necessary to impress the ladies with your efforts at the gym over the winter, think again – we are not a particularly good demographic for that.
After that, the memo’s author reminds the gents that loose-fitting suits can help hide pounds. We’re not sure what that has to do with business casual exactly, and suspect the firm just wanted to try to give equal attention to men and women so as not to appear to be solely lecturing females guilty of summer-slutty fashion sense. (As the Seventh Circuit did last month.)
After the jump, we bring you the full memo, which advises the ladies to “save it for the clubs or the beach.” According to the tipster who sent this along, the advice “wasn’t well received.”
Continue reading “Curtis Mallet Defines ‘Business Casual’ for its New York Associates”
While the vanguard of the student loan bailout movement pushes on (vanguard = me and this guy), the bailout army is in danger of being outflanked. The New York Times has been reporting that student loan forgiveness programs may not be on solid ground, especially at the state level:
If you want to become a public defender, Georgetown University can be a great place to get your legal education. So Heather Gatnarek expects to take on well over $100,000 of debt to get her law degree there and hopes to graduate in three years.
Here’s the problem, though. She’s relying on a new federal program that forgives part of the student loan debt for graduates who enter public service fields. And she was scared out of her mind when she read a New York Times article on Wednesday on problems in Kentucky, where significant cuts in one of its loan forgiveness programs have put thousands of indebted public school teachers and nurses in a painful financial squeeze.
This must be how Roman generals felt when Hannibal was teaching them about double envelopment.
In fairness, we all know 1Ls who come in with humble dreams of working for the public good. Usually, money talks while commitment to public service walks. But given the retrenchment of the Biglaw market, absent strong loan forgiveness programs, many students will be looking at some tough options:
“I would be completely up a creek” without a loan forgiveness program, Ms. Gatnarek said. “I don’t know what I would do. Marry someone rich, I guess. People say that I could just do corporate law for a few years, but I wouldn’t last two days.”
Is this just a problem in a few states? After the jump, the NYT tries to find out.
Continue reading “Student Loan Bailout: Are Loan Forgiveness Programs In Danger?”
* A dramatic closer look at Wolf Block’s collapse. [Philadelphia Magazine]
* The media buzz this week on Sotomayor: Her decision in the New Haven firefighters case could be a key issue during her confirmation hearings. [USA Today]
* Minnesota’s Supreme Court will hear arguments today in the Coleman–Franken election race. Yes, it is still going on. [Wall Street Journal]
* GM files for bankruptcy today. Wasn’t it always just a matter of time? [Associated Press]
* U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez has approved Chrysler’s sale of most of its business to Fiat. [Bloomberg]
* A Georgia man is facing execution for murdering an off-duty cop in 1989, even though seven out of the nine witnesses have recanted their testimony. Should SCOTUS intervene? [New York Times]
