Yale Law Women Announces 2015 Top Ten Family Friendly Firms

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Summary: Yale Law Women has surveyed national law firms, and has produced a list of the ten that implement the most family friendly policies.

Yale Law Women, or YLW, has announced the Top Ten Family Friendly Firms for 2015. 2015 marks the tenth year that YLW has documented firms that have the strongest family friendly policies and practices.

  

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This chart compares vacation and maternity leave policies in some of the country’s largest firms.

In alphabetical order, the top ten family friendly firms are:

1. Arnold & Porter
2. Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft
3. Duane Morris
4. Hogan Lovells US
5. Hunton & Williams
6. Kirkland & Ellis
7. Morrison & Foerster
8. Munger, Tolles & Olson
9. Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
10. WilmerHale

Several trends were noted in the survey results. For example, 11 percent of attorneys in firms that responded to the survey who had been promoted to partner in 2014 were either currently working or had previously worked part-time or flexible full-time schedules.

In October, a judge forced an attorney to bring her newborn to court.

Additionally, many firms have begun offering eighteens weeks of family leave for primary caregivers, and four weeks for secondary caregivers. Between firms, eligibility for leave varies.

Gender equity was also noted, in that 45 percent of associates were women, 19 percent of partners were women, and 29 percent of the attorneys promoted to partner in 2014 were women.

As for bonuses and billing, 52 percent of the firms that responded require full-time associates to work a minimum number of billable hours to receive a bonus. The median minimum for these firms was 1,950 hours.

In 2013, Holland & Knight changed its policies to bring more women to the firm.

Impressively, 42 percent of responding firms offered on-site daycare, and 40 percent of the firms had policies in place that allowed attorneys to take several years of leave with the option of returning to the firm at a later date.

Overall, there were several improvements noted in this year’s results, but there was also a lack of progress in several other departments. For example, many firms have improved their policy offerings related to parental accommodations, but the usage rate of family friendly policies has remained roughly the same. Additionally, the percentage of women partners has not increased since 2008.

To read the detailed results, check out the Top Ten List.

Photo credit: wickedcareers.com