Biglaw, Partner Issues

The Biglaw Firms With The Most Female Equity Partners

Some of these firms should be applauded, but some of them ought to be shamed.

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Earlier today, we brought our readersthe latest edition of the Am Law A-List, a ranking that highlights the overall quality of law firms based on factors like revenue per lawyer, pro bono commitment, associate satisfaction, and racial diversity. This year, for the first time ever, the A-List ranking incorporated into its overall calculation a score for the percentage of each firm’s female equity partners. As noted previously, the inclusion of this score had a major impact on the A-List rankings; in fact, some firms were booted from the Top 10 due to the lack of women in their equity partnership ranks.

Which led us to wonder: which Biglaw firms had the highest percentage of female equity partners? Earlier this week, we reported on a study from Law360 that ranked firms based on the ratio of female equity partners to male equity partners, so we thought we already knew the answer. Was that study incorrect, or are we so desperate for rankings related to women in law firms that another website regurgitated the same information using different phrasing? We think it may be the latter, as this is the third ranking released this week that largely has to do with women’s roles as equity partners in law firms.

So, which Am Law 200 firms have the most women in their equity partnership ranks? Here are the Top 10, as ranked by the American Lawyer:

  1. Fragomen Del Rey: 41 percent
  1. BuckleySandler: 33.30 percent
  1. Littler Mendelson: 29.20 percent
  1. Holland & Hart: 26.40 percent
  1. Schiff Hardin: 25.60 percent
  1. Ballard Spahr: 25.20 percent
  1. Brownstein Hyatt: 25.20 percent
  1. Jackson Lewis: 24.90 percent
  1. Davis Wright Tremaine: 24.40 percent
  1. Wiley Rein: 24.30 percent

Congratulations to all 10 of these firms for their willingness to give women a seat at the table in their equity partnership meetings. (But it’s disheartening to congratulate firms where more than 50 percent of equity partners are men, and in some cases, more than 75 percent are men.)

Am Law’s ranking is only a little more interesting than Law360’s because it shows us the Biglaw firms where women have the least representation in their equity partnership ranks. Here are the Top 10 offenders with the lowest representation of women in their equity partnership ranks:

  1. Kasowitz Benson: 2.60 percent
  1. Rutan & Tucker: 6.00 percent
  1. Procopio Cory: 7.10 percent
  1. Archer & Greiner: 7.30 percent
  1. Moore & Van Allen: 7.60 percent
  1. Curtis Mallet-Prevost: 8.30 percent
  1. Carlton Fields: 8.70 percent
  1. Clark Hill: 8.90 percent
  1. Gordon Rees: 9.10 percent
  1. Burr & Forman: 9.10 percent
  1. Shutts & Bowen: 9.20 percent
  1. Irell & Manella: 9.20 percent

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Just beyond the Top 10 here, we see well-known firms like Vinson & Elkins (9.60 percent), DLA Piper (10.10 percent), Schulte Roth (10.80 percent), and Winston & Strawn (10.90 percent — though the firm has a wonderful gender-neutral parental leave program), with just barely 10 percent of their equity partnership ranks filled out by women. This is a big problem.

Some of these firms should be applauded for their efforts to increase gender diversity, but some of them ought to be shamed. It’s obvious that there is still much, much more work to be done to improve women’s footing in the largest law firms in America, and change can’t come quickly enough.

Am Law 200 Firms Ranked by Percentage of Female Equity Partners [American Lawyer]

Earlier: The 2017 A-List Arrives To Salve That Itch You Had For Another Law Firm Ranking This Week
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Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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