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Ropes & Gray has a long commitment to recruiting, retaining, and developing women attorneys and supporting their progress once they arrive at the firm. Ropes hired its first female associate in 1942 and made its first female partner 37 years ago. The number of women currently practicing at the firm demonstrates the firm's progress since that time. As reflected in our 2009 report to NALP (see Demographics), approximately 40% of the lawyers are women. And that percentage continues to grow: Since 2008 more than half of our entering classes of lawyers have been women.
Women are partners in each of our six departments, and they hold significant administrative and managerial positions in the firm. Thanks to successes such as these, Vault once again gave Ropes & Gray a Top Ten ranking in "Diversity With Respect To Women" and "Diversity with Respect to Gays and Lesbians" in its 2011 survey of the 150 most prestigious law firms in the country.
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Partners Jeanne Curtis, left, and Merrill Ulmer, center, serve as Assistant Heads of the Litigation and Corporate departments respectively. Joan McPhee, right, a partner in the litigation department, serves as a member of the Policy committee. |
Ropes & Gray's commitment to its female lawyers goes beyond the statistics. Ropes organizes a number of programs and policies specifically with the goal of supporting the retention and promotion of women attorneys. Since 1996, for example, the Women's Forum has provided a venue for women lawyers to consider matters of common interest, to offer opportunities for mutual support and community, and generally to assist in the advancement and development of women lawyers at the firm. The Women's Forum Committee is comprised of more than 30 women throughout the firm who share a common commitment to facilitating the career and personal growth of the firm's female lawyers.
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Jane Goldstein,
head of our Retail and Consumer Brands Group and Chair of the Women's Forum. Colleen Conry, Department head of our Government Enforcement Practice Group and serves as the co-Chair of the Women's Forum.. |
The Women’s Forum fosters growth and progress through various programs designed to help women lawyers manage their careers, enhance their skills, and confront the issues women face. These programs have addressed such topics as networking, marketing, mentoring, strategies for career and business development, and building communications skills. The Women's Forum has hosted dynamic speakers such as Sarah Weddington, the noted lawyer and women's rights advocate who successfully argued the case of Roe v. Wade, to present “An Insider's View of Roe v. Wade by the Lawyer who Argued It.” |
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Valerie Plame Wilson, former CIA Agent, talked about how she succeeded in an area dominated by men and discussed career challenges that she personally faced as a woman; and Sara Holtz, of ClientFocus, whose work focuses on helping female lawyers become successful rainmakers.
The Women's Forum also organizes social events in each office to enable women from different practice areas to get to know one another better, such as informal cocktails in each office. Pictured below are some of the attendees at a recent Women's Forum event where Ropes & Gray's women partners recounted their personal experiences and provided advice on building and sustaining legal careers through networking, finding mentors and business development.
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In 2007, the Women's Forum worked with Louisa Casdei, a communication consultant, to put together a communication skills program for the women lawyers in the DC office. This program, “How to Communicate Effectively,” was intended to introduce the skills and behaviors that enable women lawyers to present themselves effectively in their daily professional interactions.
The Women’s Forum, and other firm programs and policies, also recognize and address the challenges faced by lawyers who are parents. Together with the Associates Development Committee, the Women’s Forum has hosted “work/life strategy luncheons,” geared toward providing positive strategies for balancing work at a large law firm and home. Topics included issues such as financial planning, estate planning, and purchasing a home. In addition, the Women’s Forum also co-hosts a “parenting luncheon” series that brings in experts to talk about such topics as “Infants and Toddlers: the Go-Go Years” and “How to Find and Choose a Nanny.” The Women’s Forum also co-hosts a very popular co-ed Book Club, where lawyers from all offices meet monthly for round table discussions of authors, book reviews and selected readings of interest. Click on some of the names below to learn more about the Women's Forum from some of the Women's Forum Steering Committee members:
Alyssa Albertelli
Alyson B.G Allen
Kelly Baxter
Tracy E. Brown
Colleen A. Conry
Jeanne C. Curtis
Jane D. Goldstein
Bernard Guinyard
Yana Dobkin Guss
Gabrielle E. Higgins
Julie Jones
Ivy Kepner
Ann E. Lewis
Z. Ying Li
Joy J. Liu
Mary T. Marshall
Joan McPhee
Deborah A. Monson
Molly Moore
Amanda M. Morrison
Anne H. Pak
Elizabeth J. Reza
Loretta R. Richard
Jennifer Rikoski
Melissa Rones
Christine Santariga
Johanna A. Van Giffen
Anita Varma
Jesse Yeo
Ropes & Gray recognizes that being a lawyer at a large firm is a major commitment, and it can sometimes be a challenge to balance that commitment against family and other priorities that may arise in your life. To support our lawyers Ropes & Gray established the Impact Program. The Impact Program was created for lawyers who need to adjust their work arrangements for family, health or similar reasons. Impact provides a flexible framework for building a long and fulfilling career at the firm. Arrangements, under the Impact Program, can include an alternative (reduced) time commitment for a short or long period, a flexible approach to working off-site and to managing the traditional work day to accommodate childcare and other responsibilities. Four women lawyers have been promoted to partner while working on a reduced schedule, all of whom were working part time to accommodate their child care responsibilities. Programs such as Impact, provides our lawyers with the support to most effectively manage their competing priorities.
For more information about the firm’s diversity commitment
as it applies to women attorneys, please contact Jane Goldstein.
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