Legal News

Fortune: Not All Law Firms are Brutal, Soul-Crushing Places

By Ashby Jones

From reading this blog and others, one might get the impression from time to time that law firms are in the business of paying young brilliant people lots of money to roll around on beds of nails, then laying them off.

But the old Fortune survey that comes out every year on the nation’s best places to work reminds us that, at least by Fortune’s standards, many of these places manage to provide pretty darn livable places for their employees.

This year’s Top 100 contains six big law firms: Bingham McCutchen (#12), Alston & Bird (#30), Arnold & Porter (#65), Perkins Coie (#75), Baker Donelson (#77), and Orrick (#95).

According to a Perkins Coie press release, (Hat tip: ABA Journal), to pick the best companies, Fortune surveys a random sample of company employees to learn their attitudes about management’s credibility, job satisfaction and camaraderie. Two-thirds of each company's score is based on the answers. The other third is based on company responses to questions about pay, benefits, diversity and communication.

What makes the six such good places to work? It seems from Fortune’s blurbs on each that diversity plays a role in keeping lawyers and staff happy. So do good bennies. Perkins, for instance, pays 100% of employees’ health care premiums.

A little positive feedback goes a long way, too. Alston & Bird “invites all employees–everyone from receptionists to shipping clerks to legal secretaries–to attend monthly firm meetings marked by the review of a project and kudos to all who contributed."

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 21, 2010 (boomark / email).