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Top Law Firms for Working Mothers
Law firms, get your PR engines ready: The list of best law firms for women has just been released, according to this joint press release by Working Mother magazine and Flex-Time Lawyers.
So what makes a law firm a great place for a working mother? The study criteria evaluated a law firm's workforce profile, benefits and compensation, parental leave, child care, flexibility and retention/advancement of women.
The Blog of the Legal Times has a post on the study, but also asks working mothers if they agree with the assessments. And commentors at WSJ Blog seem skeptical: One asks about flexibility for working dads, while another comments that she achieved work-life balance only after leaving a large firm. In the meantime, the chosen firms are milking the publicity for all its worth, as evidenced by the plethora of press releases issued by those who made the cut.
Personally, I don't find articles like this very helpful. Does it matter whether Biglaw firm A is marginally more accomodating than Biglaw firm B? Does this kind of information help inform women when they decide where they want to work? In my view, a more useful article for working mothers would have been to profile different types of employment: government, in-house, large firm, small firm and solo practice, and compared the benefits and burdens on these different positions for working mothers. Working-mother lawyers need information to help them evaluate their options and make a choice that fits. They don't need more PR.
Posted by Carolyn Elefant on August 15, 2007 at 04:08 PM | Permalink
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