Legal Research

"How Virtual Law Firms Attract and Keep Great Legal Talent"

This post was written by Nicole Garton-Jones:

The Demographic Landscape of Law

"The recent Law Society of BC Report on the Retention of Women in Law Task Force notes as follows:

? Women have been entering the legal profession in BC in numbers equal to or greater than men for more than a decade, yet represent only about 34% of all practicing lawyers in the province and only about 29% of lawyers in full-time private practice; and
? the legal profession in BC is aging and there will be a net reduction in the number of practicing lawyers - a looming shortage - as older lawyers retire without a corresponding increase in younger lawyers joining the profession.

The February 2007 cover story of California Lawyer magazine was entitled "We're Outta Here: Why Women are Leaving Big Firms." The article noted the serious issue of high attrition rates from the legal profession:

"The past few years have witnessed the highest levels of associate attrition ever documented, with an average annual attrition rate for both sexes of 19 percent, as recently reported by the NALP Foundation for Law Career Research and Education. Within five years of entering a firm, more than three-quarters of associates leave. Female associates were nearly twice as likely as males to depart to pursue a better work/life balance."

The article's key quote was:

"If law firms want to get the best and brightest young women to join them and stay, they will likely need to change radically and adopt different definitions of sacrifice and partnership."

Talking points for the rest of the article include:

• The Personal Wellness Landscape of Law (Or Lack Thereof)
• How a Virtual Law Firm Structure Enables Heritage Law to Attract and Retain Lawyer Talent
• How it Works - Technology
• How it Works - Schedule 

Full text and active links are available at the source site listed below.

Source: Slaw.ca, 19 January 2010

Reproduced with permission of Simon Fodden, founder of Slaw.

Full post as published by Stark County Law Library Blawg on January 20, 2010 (boomark / email).