Biglaw

Elite Law Firms Recognized As Some Of The Best For Women (2022)

Which firms made the cut for this year’s ranking?

By  
on
black woman lawyer trophy

(Image via Getty)

Year in and year out, we watch law firm after law firm pay lip service to their commitment to diversity in the legal profession, with promises to put women attorneys on equal footing with their male counterparts, whether it be through hiring and retaining more women attorneys, promoting more women attorneys to equity partnership ranks, providing more leadership positions to women attorneys, or adopting more family-friendly policies to ensure that women attorneys are able to excel at their jobs while maintaining a stable work/life balance. Despite these continued assurances, and despite the fact that a number of firms have made great efforts to improve women’s stature in the law, there is still much more to be done.

Today, Seramount (formerly known as Working Mother Media) released its fifteenth annual list of the Best Law Firms for Women. These law firms are considered pioneers in the field when it comes to attracting, retaining, and promoting women lawyers. These law firms not only stand out as being family-friendly workplaces, but they also ensure that women shine in their equity partnership ranks.

Which firms made the cut for this year’s ranking?

To earn themselves a spot on the Best Law Firms list, self-selected applicant firms must complete an extensive application (more than 300 questions long) with topics ranging from attorney representation, schedule flexibility, paid time off and parental leaves, and development and retention of women. Questions also included ability to work from home some of the time, family-friendly benefits, and mentoring and sponsorship participation. Seramount then selected the best firms based on data provided by those firms from the year 2021. “Our Best Law Firms for Women continue to improve in many critical areas,” said Subha V. Barry, president of Seramount. “Representation of women managing partners has increased significantly and we’ve seen progress for multicultural women lawyers at every level. Our firms recognize the importance of recruiting and retaining this important talent pool and have developed the family-friendly benefits to prove it. All of these combined are important steps toward parity.”

So what do we know about the recognized firms? Forty-three percent of managing partners at the firms are women, and 38 percent of those deciding promotions to equity partner are women. Thirty-six percent of women associates at these firms are multicultural women, and 22 percent of women equity partners promoted are multicultural women. The firms average 16 weeks of paid gender-neutral parental leave and 67 percent of the firms cover in-vitro fertilization.

Without any further ado, here are this year’s honorees (in alphabetical order):

Sponsored

  • Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld
  • Arnold & Porter
  • Baker McKenzie
  • Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz
  • Bass, Berry & Sims PLC
  • Blank Rome
  • Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck
  • Chapman and Cutler
  • Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete
  • Cooley
  • Covington & Burling
  • Crowell & Moring
  • Davis Wright Tremaine
  • DLA Piper LLP (US)
  • Dorsey & Whitney
  • Erickson Immigration Group
  • Fenwick & West
  • Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner
  • Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz
  • Goodwin Procter
  • Hanson Bridgett
  • Holland & Hart
  • Holland & Knight
  • Kirkland & Ellis
  • Lane Powell PC
  • Latham & Watkins
  • Lathrop GPM
  • Littler
  • Manatt, Phelps & Phillips
  • McDermott Will & Emery
  • Morgan, Lewis & Bockius
  • Morrison & Foerster
  • Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart
  • Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
  • Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison
  • Perkins Coie
  • Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
  • Proskauer Rose
  • Reed Smith
  • Ropes & Gray
  • Seyfarth Shaw
  • Sheppard Mullin
  • Shook, Hardy & Bacon
  • Sidley Austin
  • Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
  • Stinson
  • Stokes Lawrence P.S.
  • Vinson & Elkins
  • Wiley
  • WilmerHale
  • Winston and Strawn

Congratulations are in order for all of the firms returning to the list this year, as well as the firms that are new to the 2022 list. Excellent work!

If your firm didn’t make the cut, do you think it should have? If your firm did make the cut, was it deserved? What can be done to improve work/life balance for women and working mothers? If you’d like to let us know what you think, you can email us, text us at (646) 820-8477, or tweet us @atlblog. Once again, congratulations to all of the law firms that made this important ranking!

2022 BEST LAW FIRMS FOR WOMEN WINNERS [Seramount]

Sponsored

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

, , , ,