Working Mother mag rates law firms as employers

Click on the title to this post to reach an ABA magazine article about Working Mother magazine ranking the top 50 law firms as woman-friendly workplaces. Here is a direct link to the full article in Working Mother. They list the firms in alpha order. Gotta see if your firm's there -- well, if you work for a large firm. They don't go to the boutique and small firm world. I'm not sure it's a hard-hitting piece of investigative journalism. I looked at Mintz, Levin, from here in Boston, and find this entry:

Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo
Boston, MA

Corporate, health sciences, intellectual property and litigation services

Partners Equity 71 Nonequity 135

Percentage of female partners
Equity 11% Nonequity 21%

followed by a little quote from the firm and their logo. Take a look at their explanation of their "methodology:"

The Best Law Firms for Women application, based on the Working Mother 100 Best Companies application, was developed with Flex-Time Lawyers LLC, a national consulting firm that advises attorneys and legal employers on work/life balance and retaining and promoting women. It included questions about issues important to the retention and promotion of female lawyers. We selected the 50 winning firms based on their responses to this extensive application.

What's Measured A law firm's workforce profile, benefits and compensation, parental leave, child care, flexibility and retention/advancement of women.

This Year's Winners These law firms have the best practices of retaining and promoting women lawyers, based on 2006 data. NetX Inc., a Columbus, NJ-based independent survey research company, tabulated scores and assisted with validating the applications for completeness.

Making the List All applicants were given feedback on how they scored compared to other applicants.

The names of the firms not selected for the list have been kept confidential.

Did you understand that the firms listed apply? Well, at least it's some way of measuring law firms' promotion of women. There are comments on the page explaining their methodology, and at least one reader says they should have surveyed the women lawyers for a better picture. Yeah, I'd say that would be more helpful to people trying to decide where to apply... Or if they want to be a practicing lawyer at all, or find out what would life be like as a woman lawyer.