Legal Marketing & PR

Six Law Firms Make Fortune's List of Top 100 Places to Work

By Larry Bodine

Six law firms are on Fortune magazine's list of the best 100 companies to work for in 2010, up from five last year.

New on this year's list is Baker Donelson, with 560 attorneys in 16 offices. 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. It also factors in pay, benefits, diversity and communication.

Here are the law firms' rankings and Fortune's summaries of why they made the list:

• Alston & Bird. 'The law firm 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.'
• Arnold & Porter. 'Employees who make successful referrals at this prestigious law firm are rewarded with bonuses ranging from $450 to $15,000.'
• Baker Donelson. 'A strong commitment to diversity at this law firm founded in 1888 has lifted number of minority lawyers from 12 to 40; of 540 lawyers, 180 are women.' It is one of 17 of the top 100 companies reporting no layoffs.
• Bingham McCutchen. 'Diversity has a high priority at this corporate law firm. Retreats bring together lawyers of color and openly gay and lesbian lawyers. In response to employee feedback, health insurance was amended in 2009 to cover additional benefits for transgender employees.'
• Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. 'Recession prompted law firm to ask incoming associates to defer their entry until the fall of 2010 and offered to place them in legal jobs at nonprofits and government agencies, paying them an honorarium of $60,000 and a $15,000 bar stipend. Forty-three incoming lawyers (56 percent of the class) agreed to the deferment.'
• Perkins Coie. 'Firm was proud to represent Obama for America, with 59 lawyers working on the campaign. Another 48 attorneys worked on the Al Franken campaign.' It is one of 14 companies on the Fortune list that pay 100 percent of their employees' health care premiums.

Full post as published by Larry Bodine's LawMarketing Blog on January 23, 2010 (boomark / email).