New Biglaw Partner Class Is Pretty Encouraging
Women face hurdles reaching partnership all across Biglaw, but White & Case's new class breaks that trend.
The legal profession is notoriously stingy when it comes to advancing women. Earlier this week, we got a look at exactly how stingy when the National Association of Women Lawyers released a new study, summarized in American Lawyer, finding that among the Am Law 200, women comprise a mere 20 percent of the equity partner population despite entering the profession as roughly 47 percent of associates.
Which is what makes today’s partner promotion announcement from White & Case so encouraging. Flipping through the bios of the 41 attorneys promoted to partnership this year, roughly 46 percent of whom are women, placing the firm… right in line with the profession’s demographics. That’s not going to solve decades of underrepresentation across the entire Biglaw landscape, but if every firm could follow White & Case’s lead, it would go a long way toward setting things right.
White & Case Chairman Hugh Verrier notes that:
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This year’s class is the largest in our history, which illustrates the level of talent we have cultivated within the Firm. As we grow the White & Case partnership through both internal promotions and lateral hires, we are poised to deliver on our 2020 Strategy.
The 2020 strategy involves growing numbers in the U.S. and London, and perusing the new class it appears as though around 61 percent of the new partners come from those locations so that tracks.
Congratulations to all the new partners at White & Case. You can check out the complete list on the next page.
New Report Finds Female Path to Law Firm Partnership a Sluggish Crawl [American Lawyer]
2018 National Association of Women Lawyers Survey on Retention and Promotion of Women in Law Firms [NAWL]
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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
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