11 of 44 Chicago Law Firms Met Female Partner Goal

Women in the Law

11 of 44 Chicago Law Firms Met Female Partner Goal

Posted Nov 4, 2008, 10:18 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Updated: A Chicago Bar Association program aimed at increasing the number of women in law firm partnership ranks is being criticized for being too lenient in crediting law firms for improvement.

The “Call to Action” program found that 11 out of 44 Chicago law firms met their pledge to increase female partners by three percentage points over the last three years, the Chicago Tribune reports. But some critics question whether the program sponsored by the bar’s Alliance for Women should not have included nonequity partners in the figures.

Nicole Nehama Auerbach, a partner at Valorem Law Group and president of the Chicago Coalition of Women's Initiatives in Law Firms, supports the Call to Action but says in the future law firms should be asked to distinguish between nonequity and equity partners in the totals. "It’s easy for some firms to disguise the fact that women are not being elevated to highest levels," she told the Tribune.

A 2005 article by program co-chair E. Lynn Grayson of Jenner & Block described the effort, which also promotes flexible work policies and bias-free compensation systems.

Figures from the National Association for Law Placement show that women accounted for 19.31 of partners in Chicago law firms at the end of 2007, compared to 18.12 percent in 2004, the story says.

The article identifies only one of the firms that met the goal—Chapman & Cutler. It reports a 4.7 percent increase in female partners. The National Law Journal said there were 11 others, which would bring the total to 12. The NLJ identified the others as the Chicago offices of Bryan Cave; Seyfarth Shaw; Schiller DuCanto & Fleck; Foley & Lardner; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Hinshaw & Culbertson; Ungaretti & Harris; McDermott Will & Emery; Meckler Bulger Tilson Marick & Pearson; Katten Muchin Rosenman; and Perkins & Coie.

Updated on Nov. 5 to include information from the National Law Journal and to clarify that Auerbach supports the Call to Action.

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Posted by Ellen Barshevsky - 2 months, 4 days, 16 hours, 39 minutes ago

This is what I"VE been TALKING ABOUT. Only 11 firms are freindly wo WOMEN. OUt of 44! FOOEY ON THESE FIRMS.

Mabye it is different in NY, and LA, but I DONT THINK so. We WOMEN are getting the shaft at work, and we MUST stick up for ourself. The men are NOT promoting us to PARTNER, even thojugh we do ALL of the work.

We WOMEN are less than 19% of the PARTNERS in the firms while we are over 50% of the POPULATION! That’s BONA FIDE PER SE discrimination, and I am going to the manageing Partner at MY firm to show him and protest.

My boyfriend says NOT to get .upset over this issue, but WHY is it GOING ON OVER AND OVER AND OVER again? I should NOT have to BLAWG about this, and then show my manageing partner the article.

He generally suports me on issues, and he is letting me take off early on Wednesday for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend because Alan’s mom has invited us to dinner and we have to travell 3 hours to get there.
Posted by Ellen Barkin - 2 months, 3 days, 5 hours, 17 minutes ago

MY capslock BUTTON keeps GETTING stuck ON and OFF, too. IT sure IS annoying.

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