Women Are Thriving At Our Law Firm

Leigh Polk Cole, Esq.

The Shriver Report (see prior post) made me reflect anew on the success of women professionals at our law firm.  Women may now be 50% of the national workforce and equal or primary bread winners for most families, but women still are not equally represented in leadership and management positions of U.S. businesses nationwide.  Law firms are an interesting example.  Law firms in particular tend to have a good number of female employees overall because legal secretary, legal assistant and paralegal are professions in which women have been successful members of the workforce, and even dominant in the workforce in many markets, for years.  Our firm is no exception.  We currently employ approximately 25 non-attorney personnel of which 24 are women, and this pattern is not unusual for law firms.  Where our firm diverges from the norm is among the attorneys.  The attorney ranks at law firms tend to mirror corporate management and boardrooms, with significantly more male attorneys than female attorneys.  But our firm breaks that mold.  Of our 27 lawyers, 12 are women, including Karen McAndrew who is one of the 3 named partners in the firm and currently serves on our 3-member management committee.  Of our 19 shareholders/directors (or "partners"), 7 are women.  Of our 6 associate attorneys, 4 are women.  These figures for participation of women at the highest levels of the professional staff, ownership and management at our firm are impressive for any business of more than 50 employees, and are remarkable for a law firm.  It would be easy to attribute this to the percentage or women graduating from law school these days.  But our peer law firms do not have as many women attorneys as we do, and the women at our firm are not only among the newer graduates but also among senior partners.  Five of the women partners have been partners with the firm for more than 10 years, and all but one is over age 45 and earned law degrees back when female law grads were far outnumbered by their male classmates.  The number of women at our firm is a testament to the fact that the attorneys in the firm, men and women alike, consistently support hiring the best candidate available regardless of gender.  This is just one of the many reasons I am so very proud of our firm and my outstanding colleagues.  

Leigh Cole