Family-Friendly Law

Yale Law Women (YLW), a group that promotes the interests of women at Yale Law School and beyond, has named a California law firm?Munger, Tolles & Olson?to its 2009 Top Ten Family Friendly Firms List.

To create its list, YLW surveys the Vault Top 100 Firms and then selects law firms with the most flexible career paths?those offering options such as part-time work or the chance to leave the firm for a number of years to spend time with family.

However, some of the YLW survey results raise doubts about whether going part time is an effective way to advance in the legal profession: Of all attorneys working part time, only 12 percent are partners, according to the survey. Furthermore, on average only 5 percent of the partners promoted in 2008 had worked part time in the past.

While YLW says firms are becoming more family friendly overall, it notes that women still lag in power positions at law firms. For example, though 45 percent of associates from firms who responded to the YLW survey are women, women accounted for only 16 percent of partners and 20 percent of executive- or management-committee members at those firms.

---