Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> The Legal Intelligencer Blog

Legal News

: The Legal Intelligencer Blog

This is Progress? Low Percentage of Fortune 500 Female GCs Is Up Slightly

By Brian Harris

By Jaime Bochet

Of the Legal Staff

 

It is not news to anyone that finding a female attorney in the corner office of a law firm is still a very rare occurrence. A story that appeared in The Legal earlier this week ? examining the challenges faced by female leaders of Pennsylvania mid-sized law firms? included the sobering statistics, which we will trot out for you one more time, in case you?ve forgotten:

 

?The latest ?National Survey on Retention and Promotion of Women in Law Firms,? published by the National Association of Women Lawyers in 2009, found that only 6 percent of managing partners are women, up only 1 percent from the first survey published in 2006.

 

?A review of the 2009 PALaw magazine, a Legal affiliate, shows that only eight of the 100 largest firms in Pennsylvania have a woman in either a firmwide or office management position.?

 

(For those of us who never completed calculus, that?s 0.8 percent.)

 

Growth in those statistics has been halted for about 15 years, according to industry experts, and the concern is that the numbers will remain stagnant in law firms. This is especially concerning when you consider the fact that just about half (and in some years, more than half) of law school graduates are women ? they just aren?t getting to the top.

 

But good news can be found in an unexpected place ? the Fortune 500 list. According to a new article in Corporate Counsel magazine, a Legal affiliate, ?female in-house lawyers ? are regaining ground in general counsel posts at top U.S. companies.?

 

The article goes on to quote a recent Minority Corporate Counsel Association survey that shows ?the number of Fortune 500 female GCs increased to the highest level ever this year, now sitting at 94.?

 

Ninety-four. Out of 500. (For the non-math folks again, that?s 18.8 percent.) That might sound like a low number, but in the legal world - and indeed, in corporate America ? it?s actually big progress. In 2008, the number was 92, and then it sank to 85 in 2009 because of ?the profit-quashing doldrums of the financial crisis.?

 

But that 18.8 percent takes on a whole new glow when compared to that 6 percent, NAWL?s female managing partners number. And it shines even brighter next to Pennsylvania?s percentage of female legal leaders: 0.8.

 

According to the article, ?the MCAA stressed that those numbers are still a far cry from what the group would like to report. ?We want the [GC] population to reflect the ratio of women graduating from law school,? said [MCCA Executive Director Veta] Richardson.?

 

We?d like to see more progress too, especially close to home. Pennsylvania still has a long way to go to catch up with these numbers, but perhaps seeing is believing. Maybe the more female attorneys we see occupying those corner offices, the more we?ll believe it?s possible for others to get there too.

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on August 12, 2010 (boomark / email).