Biglaw

The Glass Ceiling Report: Law Firms Say They Support Women, But Are Nowhere Near Closing The Gender Gap

The legal profession is still overwhelmingly male, with policies skewed in their favor.

By  
on

The pandemic brought about a lot of bad news, but when it came to women’s progress in the legal profession, there was no news at all. No news is good news, right? No, and women are sick and tired of this being the case.

Despite the fact that women lawyers across the country have led movements for gender equality and equal pay, women are still “struggling” to find gender parity within the law. Women continue to be underrepresented in private practice, especially when it comes to attaining leadership roles. In fact, in the last year at the average law firm, from associate to equity partner, women’s representation has increased by no more than a percentage point, a statistic that’s been depressingly static for years.

There are now more women in law school than ever before, but men still lead the pack when it comes to private practice, making up about two-thirds of attorneys in this sector of the legal profession with gender-discrimination suits still being continuously filed by women. What’s more (but more accurately, much less) is that within those private practice firms, only 23.3 percent of equity partners are women.

This was all during the coronavirus crisis, when women working at law firms were “disproportionately affected” by the “intensified … struggle of balancing law careers with caregiving responsibilities.” In fact, according to Law360’s survey, 42% of attorneys who left their firms in 2020 were women, and women of color made up 13% of those departures.

How can progress for women in the law be made when the odds seem to be stacked against them? Some law firms are leading the way, and thanks to Law360’s annual Glass Ceiling Report, we now know which ones are the best for women.

Law360 surveyed more than 270 U.S. firms, or vereins with a U.S. component, about the demographics of their lawyer workforce as of December 31, 2020. Firms were then grouped into tiers based on U.S. attorney headcount, and ranked by the percentage of women across three attorney levels and how those measures compare with the potential marketplace of hires.

In the biggest of Biglaw category, those with 601+ attorneys, the top 5 firms are:

1. Jackson Lewis
2. Littler
3. Debevoise
4. WilmerHale
5. Ogletree

For Biglaw firms with slightly smaller headcount, 251-600 attorneys, the top 5 are:

Sponsored

1. Fragomen
2. Wood Smith
3. Epstein Becker Green
4. Day Pitney
5. Jenner & Block

You can check out Law360 (sub. req.) for rankings of smaller law firms.

Law firms continue to claim that they’re trying to change; they’ve been doing so for years, with little to no progress, and the pandemic made this even more apparent.

[T]hese uninspiring numbers aren’t a sudden result of the pandemic. Many firm leaders have entrenched biases about women that affect compensation, assignments and evaluations — judgments that can present particularly large obstacles for female attorneys of color. In spite of parental leave policies, female attorneys who shift time from their careers to their children risk the perception of being uncommitted to their firms, creating a tougher climb up the legal hierarchy.

If these barriers were eliminated industrywide, the number of women coming through the legal pipeline would likely be even larger. At this stage, firms’ headcounts show that many industry heavyweights face extensive work at creating an equitable gender breakdown in their attorney ranks.

During these unprecedented times, law firms must do much, much more to support women. Kudos to all Biglaw firms that do more than just pay lip service to gender parity and actually follow through to make these important and necessary changes.

Sponsored

Law360’s Glass Ceiling Report: What You Need To Know [Law360 (sub. req.)]
Glass Ceiling Report: How Does Your Firm Stack Up? [Law360 (sub. req.)]

Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Topics

, , , , ,