A Dispatch From D.C.: Powerful Women, Great Places To Work, And Lawyer Lit
Who are Washington's most powerful women lawyers, which D.C. firm made the "great places to work" list, and why do lawyers write novels?
Above the Law is based in New York City, and we sometimes get the criticism that we care only about New York. That’s not true. We care about Washington too.
Kidding, kidding — we cover legal markets all over the country and even the world. Have you read our Canada column?
That said, I have a special place in my heart for D.C. (where I lived from 2006 to 2008). It’s the home of the U.S. Supreme Court, some of the nation’s top Biglaw firms, and several leading law schools. It’s a city of the lawyers, by the lawyers, and for the lawyers, with the highest number of lawyers per capita (by a long shot).
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So it should come as no surprise that the current (November 2015) issue of Washingtonian magazine has tons of content that would interest attorneys. We’ll highlight three things.
1. Most Powerful Women. This article, which doesn’t appear to be online (yet), identifies more than 100 of D.C.’s most influential women. There’s a special section on law, of course, and the honorees are:
- Lisa S. Blatt: the head of Arnold & Porter’s appellate and Supreme Court practice, and one of the nation’s leading SCOTUS advocates. (She’s brilliant and hilarious, as those of you who attended ATL’s Supreme Court event last fall can attest.)
- Avis Buchanan: the longtime director of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS), one of the top PD offices in the country.
- Ellen Dwyer: managing partner of Crowell & Moring, and a guru of labor and employment law.
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor: the three female Supremes, who need no introduction.
- Loretta Lynch: the attorney general of the United States since April, who also needs no introduction.
- Patricia Millett and Cornelia Pillard: two high-profile members of the Most Holy D.C. Circuit (and the warm and witty Judge Millett is often mentioned as a possible SCOTUS nominee).
- Therese Pritchard: chair of Bryan Cave, and former head of the firm’s white-collar litigation group.
Congratulations to these impressive and very deserving honorees!
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2. Great Places To Work. This is actually the cover story of the issue. I expected to see lots of law firms on the list, given the proliferation of great Biglaw and boutique firms in D.C., but only one makes an appearance: Harris Wiltshire & Grannis.
I know HWG because of star litigators like former federal prosecutor Thomas Connolly, but just because a firm has great lawyers doesn’t mean it’s a great place to work. Here’s what Washingtonian has to say about Harris Wiltshire & Grannis as a workplace:
Law firms aren’t known as bastions of work/life balance, but HWG aims to be different. Exhibit A: no billable-hours quota. There’s also generous paid time off, including three months of maternity leave and three weeks of paternity leave. It’s a collegial place—much of the staff‚ including senior partners, eats lunch together in the conference room. Friday happy hours, bowling parties, karaoke nights, and profit sharing also help create a happy place.
Perk: Contributes 9 percent of salary into an employee’s 401(k), whether or not the person contributes, plus matches up to 4 percent.
That’s extremely generous — and especially impressive in an age when even elite firms are scaling back on perks and forcing employees to pay more for their health insurance.
(As for why there aren’t more firms on the list, an editor’s note points out: “The workplaces named here are not the only good employers in Washington. Fortune magazine included several local firms on its recent list of 100 Best Companies to Work For, including Arnold & Porter, Capital One, CustomInk, Marriott, Mars, Navy Federal Credit Union, and TEKsystems. Yet none of these is on our list. Why? Some companies limit how many ‘best places to work’ contests they enter, to reduce the number of workplace surveys their employees have to take.”)
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3. Why Do So Many Washington Lawyers Write Fiction?
Writer Britt Peterson digs into the phenomenon of “lawyer lit,” works of fiction from legal eagles. Her article contains shout-outs to several published attorney-authors, including Ronald Goldfarb (Courtship), Allan Topol (The Washington Lawyer), Anthony Franze (The Last Justice), Allison Leotta (Law of Attraction), and yours truly (Supreme Ambitions). (All links to books are Amazon affiliate links.)
These are just some highlights from the pages of Washingtonian. Other law-related articles in the November 2015 issue include an account of the legal battle over writer Gore Vidal’s multimillion-dollar estate and some nice lawyerly lairs (which we might return to in a future post). You can pick up Washingtonian at a newsstand near you or subscribe through the website.
Best Places to Work in DC: Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis [Washingtonian]
Why Do So Many Washington Lawyers Write Fiction? [Washingtonian]
