The 50 Best Law Firms for Women - 2008

Click here to go straight to the list.

Flex-Time Lawyers and Working Mother Magazine have just released their 2008 ranking of "The 50 Best Law Firms for Women." You can download a PDF of the press release from www.flextimelawyers.com.

Five Big Law firms ranked in Fortune's 100 best companies to work for

Five of the biggest Big Law firms are ranked in Fortune magazine's 2008 ranking of the 100 best companies to work for. The issue hits newsstands today, February 4th. Arnold & Porter comes in at #19, Alston & Bird at #31, Bingham McCutchen at #41, Perkins Coie at #55, and Nixon Peabody at #66. [The full list of companies is here--I tripled-checked, but tell me in the comments if I missed mentioning any legal employers on the list!]

To compile the ranking, Fortune and the Great Place to Work Institute surveyed just over 400 companies that are at least 7 years old and have more than 1,000 U.S. employees. So only the biggest of Big Law were eligible to be ranked. Writing up yet another Big Law ranking, I feel compelled to link to some of the best solo and small practice blogs at the same time--just to keep another option on the horizon for readers. Because for some lawyers, the answer to "where's the best place to work?" is surely "for yourself!" No matter what Fortune magazine says.

More on methods and highlights of the ranking, after the jump...

The revolution of falling expectations

In the 1960s, social critics spoke about the "revolution of rising expectations," describing the phenomenon in which succeeding generations of Americans expected to do better than their parents and the conflicts that resulted when they did not.

If the latest issue of Working Mother magazine trumpeting the "50 Best Law Firms for Women" is any indication, we are now in the midst of "the revolution of falling expectations," which will have its own serious consequences.

Ten Family-Friendly Firms (new ranking by law students)

The women's student group at my school has just release its second annual ranking of "the top ten family-friendly firms." I did not have any part in preparing these rankings... just passing them along. The press release is here.

According to Yale Law Women and co-sponsoring women's law groups at Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, Chicago, Boalt, Northwestern, and Virginia, the top ten family-friendly firms of 2007 are...

[More after the jump]

The Firms Where You Are Most Likely to Make Partner

Working Mother Magazine didn't rank firms by how many of their partners are female, but I'll do it (using their data)! Of the fifty firms named "best for women" by WMM and Flex-Time Lawyers, which firms have the highest proportions of equity (profit-sharing) and nonequity partners?

The standouts are Folger Levin & Kahn (San Francisco), Ice Miller (Indianapolis), Armstrong Teasdale (St. Louis), and Katten Muchin Rosenman (Chicago).

[More after the jump]

The 50 Best Law Firms for Women

Click here to go straight to the list.

Flex-Time Lawyers and Working Mother Magazine have just released a ranking of "The 50 Best Law Firms for Women." It is the September cover story of WMM. You can download PDFs of the press release and two articles at Debbie Henry's website: Young, Gifted and Leaving, and Making Partner.

I wanted to get this news item posted for y'all ASAP, so I will be back to post some more when I have read through the methodology. Meanwhile, I have a couple of comments based on what Debbie has told me in the past few months.

This is a ranking of large firms with 100 50+ employees. As Susan Carter Liebel and Carolyn Elefant emphasize, please don't forget to consider the alternatives of putting up your own shingle in a solo practice or going to work at a smaller regional firm. That is another significant way to find a different quality of life as a lawyer in private practice.

[More after the jump]