Miscellaneous

PAR Annual Conference to Focus on Creating a More Inclusive Culture

Posted on February 21, 2012
PAR?s annual conference, Beyond ?Part-Time?: Creative a Culture of Inclusion is coming up next month with an outstanding line up of conference topics and speakers. On March 14 at the offices of Crowell & Moring in Washington DC, leaders in law firms and legal departments will come together for a lively discussion on topics including:1...

Member Best Practice: O?Melveny & Myers Supports the Back-to-Work Transition

Posted on January 09, 2012
Firms are finding that offering on-ramping programs to help smooth the transition back to work from leave are being met with positive feedback and are having strong retention benefits as well. PAR has collected best practices in the area of on-ramping...

Highlights from PAR?s Flex Success Conversation ?Advancing Balanced Hours Lawyers?

Posted on December 05, 2011
PAR?s inaugural Flex Success Conversation last month was full of strategies for organizational change and individual success under balanced hours programs. The program was well-attended by reduced hours lawyers from firms and in-house, as well as law firm and legal department leaders and managers interested in success for lawyers working on flexible schedules...

The Diversity & Flexibility Connection in Action: Walmart Legal Department Shows Support for Flexible Work

Posted on October 11, 2011
The Walmart Legal Department has been a vocal and active participant in PAR?s Diversity & Flexibility Connection, committing to referring work to balanced hours lawyers, signaling support for flexible work, and effective implementation of their own commitment to diversity and flexibility...

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Highlights from the Hastings Leadership Academy for Women

Posted on August 12, 2011
At last month?s Hastings Leadership Academy for Women (LAW), twenty-one women partners from firms across the country spent three and a half focused days on building their leadership skills with business-based curriculum and practical skills practice. Here are some highlights: Ida Abbott, Co-Director of LAW, led off the program with a discussion of women?s leadership roles and paths for getting there...

Telecommuting Successes: Lessons from Legal Departments

Posted on July 05, 2011
By including telecommuting as part of a flexible work program, legal employers can reduce the stigma often associated with utilizing flexible work arrangements by offering an option that is widely utilized by male and female employees, parents and non-parents alike...

Promotion of Women Lawyers Stalls

Posted on June 03, 2011
There is not a lot to celebrate when it comes to the gender composition of the new partner classes. According to a survey of the new partner class of 2011 released by the Project for Attorney Retention (PAR) yesterday, law firms slid two percentage points in promotions of their women attorneys since last year, 32% compared to 34% in 2010...

In-House Lawyers: Help Legal Departments Develop More Effective Work-Life Programs

Posted on May 10, 2011
Take the survey for in-house lawyers.Don?t miss your chance to contribute your perspective! PAR is wrapping up the data collection portion of our 2011 Corporate Counsel survey. The survey focuses on push and pull factors for working in-house, characteristics of in-house work affecting work/life balance, succession planning, and work/life policies...

Highlights from PAR?s Annual Conference

Posted on April 08, 2011
PAR?s sold-out annual conference last week was overflowing with best practices, real-practice stories, and cautionary tales. In case you missed it, here are some highlights:The first panel explored how the move away from lockstep is affecting diversity and flexibility...

New PAR Book: Flex Success

Posted on April 04, 2011
We are very excited to announce that PAR?s new book, Flex Success: The Lawyer?s Guide to Balanced Hours by PAR founders Cynthia Calvert and Joan Williams, is now available. Here is an excerpt from the press release:Working part-time no longer means a dead-end career...

PAR Launches Nationwide Survey of Work/Life Issues for In-House Counsel

Posted on March 21, 2011
In-House Lawyers: Take the survey.PAR is currently doing a follow up study to its report on work/life balance for in-house attorneys, Better on Balance? The Corporate Counsel Work/Life Report (2003). That report focused on three principal goals: one, identify the types of work schedules that in-house attorneys use successfully to find work/life balance; two, develop best practices and a model policy; and three, test the perception of many law firm partners that corporate counsel, as clients, would not want to work with law firm attorneys who were working part-time...

PAR Annual Conference to Address Challenges for Diversity & Flexibility in the New Economy

Posted on February 28, 2011
PAR?s annual conference, As the Legal Profession Turns: New Challenges for Diversity & Flexibility is coming up at the end of next month with an outstanding line up of conference topics and speakers. On March 30 at the offices of DLA Piper in Washington DC, leaders in law firms and legal departments will come together for a lively discussion on topics including:1...

More Good News on Promotion of Women and Reduced Hours Lawyers

Posted on February 07, 2011
PAR member Andrews Kurth LLP is making some great progress in promoting women. Forty percent of the firm?s 2011 partner class is women. In addition, two of the four women elected to partnership are on the firm?s Flex Path program. Andrews Kurth?s success in promoting women, including women on reduced hours schedules, is consistent with PAR?s Part-Time Partner Study, which shows that part-time partners are having successful careers with their law firms...

No Part-Time Floodgates

Posted on January 21, 2011
Recently, NALP reported on the usage of part-time schedules in law firms. NALP?s latest data show that 6.4% of lawyers were working part-time in 2010, and 70% of those part-timers were women. This is up from 5.9% in 2009 and 2.9% in 2001 when PAR published its first report on part-time lawyers...

Resolve to Change the Partner Comp Process this Year

Posted on January 05, 2011
Last summer, PAR and MCCA published the groundbreaking study on the disparate impact of law firm compensation systems on women. The study concluded that existing compensation systems for lawyers open the door to gender bias because they contain tremendous subjectivity, lack transparency, and because so much of the negotiation surrounding salaries takes place out of sight...

On-Ramping Options

Posted on December 13, 2010
For several years now, large law firms have been offering attorneys returning from maternity, adoption, or caregiver leave to ramp back up into their practice. These ?on-ramping? policies, which allow for a gradual return to a full-time schedule or an easy introduction to a reduced hours schedule, have become popular and well-utilized...

Wilmer Hale's Success with Part-Time Lawyers

Posted on November 23, 2010
Wilmer Hale announced its new partners for 2011 last week. The big news: 8 of the 11 new partners are female; that?s 73%, and they?re all equity partners at Wilmer Hale. The firm will certainly feature prominently in PAR?s roundup of gender composition of new partners when we compile the data in the spring...

Walmart Implements Diversity & Flexibility Connection Best Practices

Posted on November 08, 2010
Walmart?s Executive Vice President and General Counsel Jeff Gearhart recently updated the company?s outside counsel guidelines to reflect the best practice recommendations of the PAR Diversity & Flexibility Connection. The Diversity & Flexibility Connection is an ongoing discussion between prominent general counsels and law firm chairs on the retention of diverse attorneys through the inclusion of an effective work/life program...

Utah Women Lawyers Push Change

Posted on November 03, 2010
The new report from the Women Lawyers of Utah is gaining a lot of attention (here, here, here, and here). Indeed, many of the findings are headline-worthy, including that only 23% of the lawyers in Utah are female, only 11% of partners are female, 23% of women lawyers feel they have been treated unfairly, and 10% say they have been sexually harassed...

When the Stay-Home Parent Wants to Go Back to Work

Posted on October 08, 2010
This is a re-post (with permission) of The Careerist's blog on returning to work. PAR's Director of Special Projects, Linda Marks, served as guest blogger.Question from a reader:How do lawyers with a few years of legal experience reenter the job market after taking time off to raise their families?After over a decade's leave, several geographical moves (and several bar exams as well), and a stint of work in the legal department of a large national health insurance company, I am once again attempting to reenter the job market...

Exciting Staff Changes at PAR

Posted on September 28, 2010
PAR has recently enhanced its research and service capabilities with the addition of two new staff members. Penelope Huang, Ph.D., has joined PAR as Research Sociologist and Jessica Natkin, J.D., is the new Director of Programs. With the addition of Penny and Jessica to our staff, PAR will be able to push the boundaries of academic-quality research and to link that research with direct solutions for our members and the legal community...

?Opting Back In? National Telephone Coaching Group: For attorneys who want to return to law

Posted on September 17, 2010
REGISTER NOW! Continuing program with openings starting in October If you?re an attorney who left law to care for your family and want to return to legal practice, register now for the Opting Back In telephone coaching group. Participants from locations around the country call in to a single teleconference bridge line at a regular day and time and receive professional coaching from Ellen Ostrow of Lawyers Life Coach LLC and Linda Marks of the Center for WorkLife Law at UC Hastings College of the law on how to craft and implement return-to-work plans...

Maternity Leave Lessons from Small Business

Posted on August 19, 2010
While large law firms have generally become more progressive with their policies for maternity leaves, adoption leaves, and paternity leaves, many small firms are just beginning to tackle these issues. We often hear from lawyers at small firms that they were the first in their firms to take maternity leave...

The Times Opts Out of the "Opt Out" Narrative

Posted on August 17, 2010
The New York Times, for forty years, ran one story after another quoting women saying they had opted out of the workforce after they had children, according to a 2006 report by the Center for WorkLife Law. The most famous was Lisa Belkin's 2003 New York Times Magazine story, "The Opt Out Revolution...

Do In-House Lawyers Have Better Work/Life Balance?

Posted on August 07, 2010
PAR released its groundbreaking study on work/life balance for in-house attorneys, Better on Balance? The Corporate Counsel Work/Life Report, back in 2003. That report focused on the defining the types of work schedules that in-house attorneys use successfully to find work/life balance, offering best practices, and testing the perception of many law firm partners that corporate counsel would not want to work with law firm attorneys who were working part-time...

Compensation Survey of Lawyers Finds Deep Dissatisfaction Among Women Partners, Who Make 22% Less Than Men

Posted on July 07, 2010
PAR and MCCA released a report today of its compensation survey of women partners. The report, New Millennium, Same Glass Ceiling? The Impact of Law Firm Compensation Systems on Women, is available on PAR's website. The press release:SAN FRANCISCO, July 7, 2010: A report released today by the Project for Attorney Retention and the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, based on a survey of nearly 700 women law firm partners, concludes that existing compensation systems for lawyers open the door to gender bias because they contain tremendous subjectivity, lack transparency, and because so much of the negotiation surrounding salaries takes place out of sight...

Keshet Study of Business Development

Posted on May 25, 2010
Harry Keshet, a researcher and consultant who has previously worked with the National Association of Women Lawyers, is in the midst of a study of business development that promises to be a significant resource for the legal profession. He is collecting data about business development opportunities, resources, experiences, and results, and will analyze the data by gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation...

Update to New Partners 2010 Report: Two More Firms Make the "Best" List

Posted on May 21, 2010
We recently updated our report on the gender composition of the new partner classes of various law firms, and the news continues to be encouraging. We included the 2010 data for Debevoise & Plimpton and Drinker Biddle, and both made our "Best" list for promoting new partner classes that are 50% or more female...

Women Lawyers Advance in New Partner Classes

Posted on April 19, 2010
34% of New Partners are Female, Compared to 28% in 2009The economy may be looking up, at least for the women lawyers in the 2010 new partner classes. According to a survey released today by the Project for Attorney Retention (PAR), law firms made significant advances in retaining and promoting their women lawyers: 23 firms made new partner classes that were 50% or more female, and 34% of the new partners are female, compared to 28% of the new partners in 2009...

Colorado Campaign for Inclusive Excellence

Posted on March 04, 2010
A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of speaking in Denver at the public unveiling of the Denver-specific findings of the Part-Time Partners report. PAR and the Colorado Women's Bar Association and Bar Association Foundation worked jointly on the study of part-time partners, with very interesting results...

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