New Insight into Retaining Female Attorneys
In case you missed it, the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) recently released a report which recommends policies and procedures to help law firms retain female attorneys (http://www.law.com/jsp/law/sfb/lawArticleSFB.jsp?id=1202422998543). The ability of law firms to retain female attorneys has long been an issue, and hopefully this report will provide law firms with some new policies and procedures to help them increase the number of female attorneys within their ranks.
I believe one of the best methods to retain female attorneys is to create an effective flex-time program that does not leave either the firm or the attorney feeling short-changed. Specifically, the part-time attorney often ends up working a full-time schedule and ends up resenting the fact that s/he is being paid less than his or her full-time counterparts. One method to address this common gripe is to base a part-time associate’s compensation on the associate’s actual billable hours compared with the firm’s billing requirement. For example, if the part-time associate’s billable hours equal 75% of the firm’s billing requirement, then it seems only fair that the part-time associate should receive 75% of the compensation of a full-time associate. This is just one effective technique that I have seen a very well-regarded New York law firm use with great results. It is worth noting that this law firm is a long-standing member of the American Lawyer’s A-List, so it appears that it must be doing something right. Hopefully NAWL’s report will help law firms achieve the long-time goal of increasing their ability to retain female attorneys.
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