Law firms should consider structural business changes to retain female attorneys, says a report released by Heller Ehrman, a San Francisco law firm.
A disproportionate number of women leave large law firms, according to the report, which cited a 2005 survey by the National Association for Law Placement.
The survey said that though 44 percent of law firm associates are women, only 17 percent of partners are.
“Law firms suffer a significant economic loss because of this exodus of talent, particularly since there is an increase in the departure of associates after their third year — the year in which they are often just becoming profitable,” the report said.
Law firms could eliminate their reliance on hourly billing, increase part-time status, provide on-site child care, let attorneys take unpaid leave or create tracks of associates at different work and pay levels, the report said.
“Other businesses have taken steps to address this issue,” the report said, citing investment banks and accounting firms that have created programs to stop attrition of women workers.
The ideas contained in the report are merely suggestions, not specific recommendations, Patricia Gillette, an author of the report and partner at Heller Ehrman, said in an interview.
“It’s hard to believe any law firm would endorse all of these,” she said.
Gillette said corporate clients also were encouraging law firms to retain more attorneys by asking law firms to provide information about the number of women and minorities they employ.
Law firms have “a serious problem with women, a huge issue with people of color,” said Timothy Mayopoulos, general counsel at Bank of America Corp., the second-biggest U.S. bank.
Mayopoulos said law firms have been “woefully slow” at providing attorneys opportunities to pursue part-time jobs or jobs that are outside of the traditional partnership track.
“Companies generally have done a much more effective job in creating a wide variety of roles for people in which they can achieve professional and personal satisfaction,” he said.
About half of the 350 attorneys in Charlotte-based Bank of America’s legal department are women, Mayopoulos said.
Sun Microsystems Inc. general counsel Michael Dillon said about 40 percent of the 160 attorneys in the legal department of the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company are women.
Companies are better than firms at recruiting and retaining women because they often offer more flexible work positions and don’t require attorneys to bill a specific number of hours a month, as most law firms do, Dillon said.
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“They are not constrained by the billable hour,” Dillon said.
Dillon said that Sun, the third-biggest maker of server computers, recently selected 10 law firms to handle the bulk of the company’s legal work. Those firms were chosen in part based on their efforts to hire more women and minorities.
“We let them know that diversity is extremely important to us,” he said.
Heller Ehrman is the 46th-highest grossing U.S. law firm, with revenue of $507 million in fiscal 2006, according to the American Lawyer, a trade publication.