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 — and we know which firms are working hard to do it.
Today, Seramount (formerly known as Working Mother Media) released its sixteenth annual list of the Best Law Firms for Women & Diversity. 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 and people of color. Questions also included family-friendly benefits, and mentoring and sponsorship participation. Seramount then selected the best firms based on data provided by those firms from the year 2022. “I’m proud to expand our Best Law Firms for Women to include diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts,” said Subha V. Barry, president of Seramount. “From increasing representation of historically excluded talent to expanding upon their family-friendly benefits, our Best Law Firms are putting in the work necessary to build firm cultures where employees can thrive.”
So what do we know about the recognized firms? Forty-two percent of lawyers at these firms are women, 23 percent of lawyers at these firms are women of color, and 41 percent of women lawyers hired at these firms are women of color. Twenty-seven percent of equity partners are women, while the percentage of women promoted to equity partner is 39 percent. The firms average 17 weeks of paid gender-neutral parental leave and 90 percent of the firms subsidize childcare.
For the first time, Seramount has revealed the top five firms. Here they are (in alphabetical order):
- Arnold & Porter
- Littler
- Morrison Foerster
- Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
- Perkins Coie
Perkins Coie may be last alphabetically, but the firm came in first place overall. Congratulations!
Without any further ado, here is the full list of this year’s 50 honorees (in alphabetical order):
- Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
- Arnold & Porter
- Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC
- Bass, Berry & Sims PLC
- Blank Rome LLP
- Chapman and Cutler LLP
- Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete
- Cooley LLP
- Covington & Burling LLP
- Cozen O’Connor
- Crowell & Moring LLP
- Davis Wright Tremaine LLP
- DLA Piper LLP (US)
- Dorsey & Whitney LLP
- Erickson Immigration Group
- Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP
- Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP
- Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz
- Goodwin Procter LLP (“Goodwin”)
- Hanson Bridgett LLP
- Holland & Knight LLP
- Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP
- Jackson Lewis P.C.
- Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP
- Kirkland & Ellis LLP
- Latham & Watkins LLP
- Lathrop GPM, LLP
- Littler
- Lowenstein Sandler LLP
- McDermott Will & Emery
- Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky, and Popeo, P.C.
- Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
- Morrison Foerster
- Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP
- Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C.
- Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
- Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP
- Perkins Coie
- Proskauer Rose
- Ropes & Gray LLP
- Seyfarth Shaw LLP
- Sheppard Mullin
- Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P.
- Sidley Austin LLP
- Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
- Stokes Lawrence P.S.
- Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP
- Wiley Rein LLP
- WilmerHale
- Winston & Strawn LLP
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 2023 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!
2023 BEST LAW FIRMS FOR WOMEN AND DIVERSITY WINNERS [Seramount]
Staci 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.
