Women in the Law

Only 2% of BigLaw Partners are Minority Women, Study Says

Minorities continue to be underrepresented in the partnership ranks of big law firms, with minority women faring the worst, according to a study by the National Association for Law Placement. Only 1.88 percent of partners at major law firms are minority women and only 4.21 percent are minority men, according…

Oct 15, 2008 12:48 PM CDT

Find Support Group First, Then Open Office, Solo Advises

After 20 years of practice, Jane Ann Landrum decided she was ready to go solo this year after her previous law firm dissolved. But a big part of what made it possible was the support network she had in place, the Kansas City, Mo., litigator tells the Kansas City Star.…

Oct 14, 2008 5:04 PM CDT

Stereotypes Blamed for Job Review Bias Against Women

Updated: Stereotypes may be the reason women lawyers are more likely than their male counterparts to report bias in job reviews, according to a report by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession. Commission researchers said that assertive, demanding female lawyers are given low marks for interpersonal skills while…

Oct 1, 2008 1:37 PM CDT

More Law Firms Specify How Part-Time Associates Can Make Partner

Associates on flex-time or part-time schedules can consult official policies on how they can still make partner at an increasing number of large law firms. Fish & Richardson, Morrison & Foerster and Ropes & Gray all recently adopted or revised policies detailing the path to partnership, the National Law Journal…

Oct 1, 2008 11:56 AM CDT

Firms Take Family-Friendly Approach to Retain Women

Responding to what the Los Angeles Times calls an exodus of female talent who are faced with dated concepts of career path, firms are changing … slowly but surely. A feature this weekend in the Times leads with environmental lawyer Loren Montgomery, who when she became pregnant eight years ago,…

Sep 29, 2008 3:34 PM CDT

Four Law Firms on Working Mother’s List of 100 Best Companies

Working Mother Magazine has released its 2008 list of 100 best companies, and it includes four law firms. They are: Arnold & Porter, Covington & Burling, Katten Muchin Rosenman and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, the National Law Journal reports. The list was released one month after the magazine listed the…

Sep 25, 2008 12:54 PM CDT

Mexican Brothel Raid Just Part of N.Y. Lawyer’s Job

Rescuing two young girls from a Mexico City brothel, accompanied by others, including 20 armed immigration agents, isn’t usually part of a New York lawyer’s work. But it was part of the job for Linda Lopez of the Center for Battered Women’s Legal Services at New York’s Sanctuary for Families,…

Sep 24, 2008 10:39 PM CDT

‘Queen’ Sybil Moses is Retiring from N.J. Bench

It wasn’t until she was 30-something and married with two children that Sybil Moses went to law school. And that was in the 1970s, when she and the other members of the “Band of Mothers” at Rutgers University School of Law in Newark, New Jersey, were “a bit of an…

Sep 22, 2008 5:48 PM CDT

Akin Gump Appoints Female Litigator as First Managing Partner

Kim Koopersmith will join the meager ranks of female managing partners at America’s largest law firms when she takes on the job for Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld on Oct. 1. The move comes as the law firm deals with partner defections and increasing discontent, the American Lawyer reports.…

Sep 17, 2008 2:00 PM CDT

Trailblazing Oregon Judge Fought ‘Shockingly Overt Sexism’—and Won

When Betty Roberts attended her first judicial conference, a male judge groped her breast. And that was just one of a number of instances of what a newspaper reviewing an autobiography of Oregon’s first female supreme court justice describes as the “shockingly overt sexism she faced as recently as the…

Sep 15, 2008 10:39 PM CDT

Being a Lawyer and Male Makes You a Top Earner, Census Report Shows

The highest earners in 2007 were men in legal occupations, who earned a median salary in 2007 of $105,233, according to a Census Bureau report. The online report (PDF) issued in August shows women in legal occupations, which includes paralegal as well as lawyer positions, didn’t fare as well. Their…

Sep 10, 2008 11:57 AM CDT

More Women Partners Break Through Glass Ceiling in UK

Despite a difficult economy, more women than ever before are becoming partners at the 100 largest firms in the United Kingdom. “There are still far fewer female lawyers than male, but ratios at U.K. firms are improving, with 19.6 percent of partners in the top 100 firms now female. This…

Sep 9, 2008 9:44 PM CDT

Yale Law Women List Top 10 Family-Friendly Law Firms

Updated: Last year, Quarles & Brady was No. 1. But this year, the Milwaukee, Wisc.-based law firm didn’t even make it on a list of the nation’s 10 most family-friendly law firms compiled by Yale Law Women. It wasn’t alone in being left out, however: Only three law firms—Arnold &…

Sep 8, 2008 11:21 PM CDT

Meet Shelley Smith, a City Solicitor With 200 Pairs of Shoes

It’s not easy being in the shoes of Shelley Smith, who has served as Philadelphia’s city solicitor for the past eight months. For one thing, they’re size 11, and she’s got 200 pairs—50 of them ready for action in a closet in her municipal office. For another, she’s got a…

Sep 2, 2008 7:22 PM CDT

In Search of Equality

Commission says barriers remain after 20 years

Sep 1, 2008 1:25 PM CDT