ALMResearchBlog

Diversity News and Information

Which firms have made the best efforts to foster diversity? Take a look at the annual Diversity Scorecard, published each spring by ALM Media’s magazine, The Minority Law Journal. The searchable spreadsheet includes numbers of U.S. partners and associates who are minorities, as well as the percentage of women attorneys at NLJ 250 and Am Law 200 firms. It is available through ALM Research Online in the Lists & Rankings section. Subscribers to ALM Research Online have access to all years’ data (1984, 1985, 1990, 1992, 1996, 1998, and 2001-2006).

We mention this because there have been a surge of reports about diversity in law firms and legal departments lately. The National Law Journal’s October 11th Law Firms Newsletter was completely devoted to the issue of diversity, with articles on Why Patches Won’t Work, Diverse Attorneys Need Reasons to Stay, The Challenge of Diversity Begins with Law School and several other topics.

Our newspaper in Atlanta, Fulton County Daily Report, reported that Fortune 500 Companies are Seeing More Minority GCs, with a report based on the latest survey from the Minority Corporate Counsel Association . Progress has been mixed for minorities, according to the report. The number of African Americans in Fortune 500 GC jobs continues to grow slowly, with 22 now holding such posts -- one fewer than last year. But the total of all minority GCs is up from 32 last year, and the number of Asian-American GCs has doubled, from 6 to 12. Unfortunately, a huge disparity in gender continues among Fortune 500 general counsel of color

The ABA Journal Newsletter that Cleary Gottlieb had topped the Diversity Rankings compiled by Law Students Building a Better Profession, using data published by NALP (National Association for Legal Placement). The study found that about a third of New York firms had no Hispanic, African-American, or Asian-American partners. Female partners were even less well-represented.

But many firms have made a concerted effort to promote diversity within the ranks. Bryan Cave recently named its first diversity officer (Tina Harris), according the a recent Hildebrandt Headlines posting, and Perkins Coie hired a new director of diversity and professional development—Theresa Cropper, who had previously been the national diversity director at DLA Piper.

ALM Research E-Newsletter: Tech Focus

The October/November issue of the ALM Research e-newsletter, NewsLine, went out today. The focus of this issue is Technology. Technology surveys, technology studies, technology reports. Ratings of products, rankings of law firms, products law firms and legal departments are using, trends in budgets and salaries, trends in purchasing.

If you're not already a subscriber to the newsletter, you can access the current NewsLine by clicking here and you can subscribe to the newsletter by clicking here.

Fewer Women Are Seeking Law Degrees

That was the title of a recent National Law Journal article on the American Bar Association’s statistical report showing that the percentage of women in law schools has declined each year since 2002. According to the ABA, five years ago, women made up 49 percent of law school enrollment. This year, 46.9 percent of law school students are women. The article explores some of the reasons for this trend--a strong economy in 2004-2005 may have led many to go right into the work force; there are more options available to women these days; and, as always, there are the quality of life issues entailed in working as a lawyer in private practice.

Survey: Skadden is the Standard-Bearer, DC Firms Lag

According to this report from the blog of our sister publication in Washington, DC, Legal Times, a new survey report published by BTI Consulting Group reveals the unsurprising news that Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom is the standard-bearer among corporate law firms. BTI’s survey asked corporate counsel, among other things, what firms were getting the most work. Their research identified eight other firms as power players in the transactions market: Baker & McKenzie; Jones Day; Mayer Brown; McDermott Will & Emery; Sidley Austin; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and Vinson & Elkins. As for Washington-based firms, they aren’t leading the pack, the blog writer said.

Who Represents Corporate America?

The National Law Journal has the list, the 20th annual Who Represents Corporate America list, that is, showing which law firms represent America’s largest companies, the Fortune 500. According to NLJ, their methodology this year was to “comb state and federal records to see which firms corporations actually used for commercial law and contracts litigation; corporate transactions; employment and labor litigation; and intellectual property litigation and patent prosecution.”

Data from this list is archived in the ALM Research Online database. In spreadsheet format, it becomes part of the overall Who Represents Corporate America product for 2007, which is updated on an on-going basis throughout the year with information from American Lawyer’s and Corporate Counsel‘s “Big Deals” and “Big Suits” columns, and a variety of other research reports that tell readers who counsels who.

50 Most Influential Women Lawyers in America

The National Law Journal asked their readers to nominate women lawyers who have had a national impact in their fields and beyond during the last five years. The result was a special publication, the 50 Most Influential Women Lawyers in America. NLJ looked for “women with the demonstrated power to change the legal landscape” and noted that “there were a lot of close calls in the course of our highly subjective review. In the end, this list reflects not just the most influential women lawyers, but some of the most influential lawyers, period.”

New Release: The Global 100

The American Lawyer has just published the 2007 Global 100 rankings and once again top three firms on the planet, based on annual gross revenue, are Clifford Chance, Linklaters, and Skadden Arps. But after that, there's been a bit of shuffling of the deck since last year's list. This year, Baker & McKenzie is in 4th place (last year, the firm was 6th), with a gross revenue that is different than what was presented in the annual Am Law 100. This is due to Baker & McKenzie's rather inconvenient fiscal year end, June 30th--two months after the publication of the Am Law 100 report. (Most American law firms' fiscal year coincides with the calendar year; most British, Canadian, and Australian firms' fiscal year ends at the end of the first quarter of the year.)

This year, the Global 100 chart was compiled in conjunction with our new sister publication, Legal Week this year. Note that there are actually three "Global 100" charts: the key chart ranks by gross revenue, and a second chart ranks by size (number of lawyers). A third chart ranks firms by their profits per equity partner; only firms on the first two charts are considered for these rankings. In all, there are 113 firms that made one or both of the first two charts.

The Global 100 in searchable spreadsheet format is now available through the ALM Research Store, and it includes all the data points covered in the three charts. The data from the Global 100 charts is now archived in the ALM Research Online database for subscriber searches.

NALP Study on Women in the Profession

NALP (National Association for Legal Placement) recently published a report called Women in the Profession, which is part of their on-going longitudinal research project, “After the J.D.,”  which is following the careers of 4,500 lawyers, over a 10-year period, who were admitted to practice in 2000. The study on women is based on a portion of the data collected.

A story in the National Law Journal about the report focused on the fact that fewer women work as solo practitioners and fewer women than men work in private law firms. A few other salient points in the report include men work more hours than women and earn more, men are more likely to join partners for meals and recreation, women report more experiences of discrimination in the workplace, and were less satisfied with their opportunities for advancement.

The full report is available from NALP by clicking here.

2008 Corporate Equality Index

The 6th annual Corporate Equality Index shows an “unprecedented” 195 major U.S. businesses earned the top rating of 100%, up from 138 last companies last year—a 41% increase. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index report, released each fall, provides an in-depth analysis and ratings of large U.S. employers and their policies and practices pertinent to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees, consumers and investors. Most importantly, we counted 29 Am Law 200 firms on the list that had perfect (100%) scores.

In-House Law Departments: Salaries, Spending

According to Altman Weil’s  2007 Law Department Compensation Benchmarking Survey, total compensation for in-house lawyers in management jumped 8% to 14% this year, and 4.5% to 23% for non-management lawyers. A report of the survey appeared in the National Law Journal. For chief legal officers, salaries rose 5.8% to a median $300,000 in 2007, while bonus dollars spiked 43% to $157,400. Division general counsel collected a 10.2% salary increase for a median of $232,000, plus a median $104,600 bonus. The survey includes data from 343 law departments with 8,148 lawyers and 72 one-lawyer departments.

Another recent NLJ article (In-house costs outpace outside counsel spending) reported on Hildebrandt International’s 2007 Law Department Survey and said that corporate legal spending increased 6% over the past year, with increases in internal spending (8%) outpacing external expenditures (3%). Total cash compensation for in-house attorneys, including salaries and bonus, climbed 10% last year, compared with 7.5% during the previous year, according to Hildebrandt’s study, which included 202 companies employing an average of 4.2 lawyers. They also surveyed companies' U.S. and international operations, and found that the median company has global revenue of $10 billion, spends nearly $30 million on legal matters and staff and has a U.S. law department with almost 30 layers and 60 staffers. The median company also shells out 58% of its U.S. legal spending on outside counsel and 40% on inside legal costs. Chief Legal Officer's total cash compensation rose $50,000 to nearly $900,000, with the median total at $800,000. General counsel's average cash compensation spiked 19% to $700,000.