Lack of caregiver support and career opportunities are the top reasons women leave their law firms. What can firms do?
The post Leveraging Agile Career Strategies to Retain Women Lawyers appeared first on Articles, Tips and Tech for Law Firms and Lawyers.

Women leave private law practice for two reasons: lack of support for caregivers and lack of career advancement. Adopting agile career strategies for women lawyers — from flexible hours to alternative career paths — benefits everyone in your law firm.

agile career strategies for female attorneys — Leveraging Agile Career Strategies to Retain Women Lawyers 3

Women’s representation in the business of law recently reached a milestone: Female lawyers now make up a majority of law firm associates nationwide. This historic marker comes after a half-century in which the share of women in the legal profession has skyrocketed. Consider that women made up just 9% of U.S. law students in 1970. Now, 55% of law school graduates are women, while 41% of lawyers are women.

This article explores some innovative strategies to help firms advance the careers of female lawyers — particularly those with dependent children — with a focus on creative career options and nontraditional law firm staffing opportunities. These commonsense initiatives will serve the needs not only of women but of all caregivers, helping to abate the alarming rate of attrition in firms across talent levels.

The Need to Better Integrate Women into Law Firms

The proportion of women in the legal profession will only climb as older lawyers (who are predominantly male) retire and female students make up an ever-growing share of law school classes. Yet firms still struggle to advance women into leadership and ownership roles, and attrition rates for women remain disproportionately high.

Little progress has been made in elevating women to the higher echelons of firms: Only 28% of law firm partners were female in 2023. Further, in a survey by Above the Law, half of female associates said they planned to exit their jobs within one to two years, compared to one-third of their male counterparts. These challenges are only compounded for women of color.

Women’s departures from firms can be crippling when considering the squandered investments in talent, high costs of hiring replacement attorneys, impairment of valuable client relationships and damage to workplace culture.

These challenges come amid other concerns about a growing talent deficit as baby boomers exit law firms and firms fail to develop and retain younger attorneys.

In the face of shifting demographics and talent challenges, firms must do a much better job of retaining women. If not, they will soon find they lack the talent bench needed to satisfy client expectations and fill vital leadership and ownership roles.

Sticking Points for Women in Law Firms

Two major challenges stand out when it comes to retaining and advancing women: issues relating to women’s caregiving roles and firms’ inadequate career advancement strategies.

Caregiving Roles

While not all women have children, caregiving roles often loom large for women in the workplace. According to an ABA and ALM Intelligence survey, “caretaking commitments are the No. 1 reason (58%) why experienced female lawyers leave law firms.”

Although both mothers and fathers may struggle to balance the demands of lawyering and parenting, a disproportionate share of parenting duties falls to women, per an ABA report on parenthood. Mothers are much more likely to shoulder childcare and household duties. For example, 65% of mothers, compared to 7% of fathers, are in charge of arranging childcare, while 47% of mothers, compared to 17% of fathers, are responsible for leaving work to attend to children’s needs.

Unsurprisingly, then, mothers experience greater stress and burnout than fathers due to their family vs. career balancing act. Of mothers working in law firms, 70% “almost always” or “often” feel overwhelmed with everything they need to do, compared to 41% of fathers. And nearly half of mothers surveyed felt that having children had negatively affected their legal career, in contrast with just 21% of fathers.

The ABA parenthood report illuminates possible solutions by identifying the major reasons mothers would choose to exit their jobs: 42% of mothers cited the number of required hours, and 34% identified work-life balance as a reason to leave. Meanwhile, 60% of mothers of dependent children said they would stay at a firm that allowed them to work a schedule that aligned with their caretaking responsibilities.

Career Advancement

Lack of career development and advancement was the top reason employees left their jobs across all industries and genders, according to a McKinsey & Company survey. However, these issues are particularly salient for women. In the ABA and ALM Intelligence survey noted above, “62% of men said they were satisfied with opportunities for advancement at their law firms, but only 45% of women felt the same.” In another ABA report, 47% of surveyed women identified better opportunities to progress as a factor that was very or extremely important in deciding whether to switch jobs, compared to just 30% of men.

Agile Career Models Will Make a Difference

Without question, a wide array of strategies is vital for supporting women in firms, including targeted mentoring and leadership programs, family-friendly policies with ample parental leave and an inclusive workplace culture that does not tolerate bias or sexual harassment. The focus here, however, is on flexible career options, which can play an especially impactful role in supporting women with dependent children. Notably, these strategies also support fathers and those caring for aging parents and are likely to appeal to younger attorneys who place an emphasis on work-life balance.

Flexibility in Work Hours and Location

Flexible work hours and location can be highly attractive to mothers, given the complex and ever-shifting nature of parenting responsibilities. As McKinsey observes, many caregivers “are ready to lend their time and talents to companies that are willing to work with their schedules. For them, workplaces that are inflexible and that don’t provide a pathway to advancement aren’t worth the sacrifice of going back to work while continuing their caregiving duties.”

Options for flexibility at multiple talent levels include the following:

Hybrid or remote work
Flexible work hours (where full-time employees work a schedule of their choosing, possibly subject to “core hours”)
Extended leaves and sabbaticals
Part-time roles

Law firms that offer customized work options should pay special attention to ensuring robust access to on-the-job training and career advancement opportunities that provide meaningful client and business development interaction. This can be achieved in part through syncing in-person work schedules with targeted training, mentoring and sponsoring initiatives.

Flexible work alternatives (like the additional strategies discussed below) should be wholeheartedly endorsed by law firm leaders and normalized within the firm. When firm leaders make it a practice to recognize and celebrate the accomplishments and excellence of all talent, the employees who avail themselves of nontraditional work options will feel they are highly valued members of the team. And these individuals, provided they meet the criteria enshrined in the firm’s fair compensation and promotion policies and practices, should not suffer diminished career advancement opportunities, nor pay disparities.

Alternative/Customized Career Paths for Women Lawyers

Not all mothers and caregivers have the bandwidth or desire to pursue an equity partnership track. Yet many of these lawyers seek a continued path to professional growth and have much to contribute. Firms should ensure that rigid career tracks do not push valuable talent out the door.

Alternatives to equity ownership are worthy options for law firms of all sizes. Many larger firms rely on non-equity partnership positions, in which lawyers do not own a stake in the firm yet enjoy many of the other benefits of partner status. Likewise, senior counsel positions may offer increased flexibility while providing a jump in prestige from associate positions.

Firms can further expand their career pathways by creating thought-leadership roles for skilled attorneys who choose not to follow a traditional partnership track. Options include practice group and special project leadership roles with appropriate compensation incentives. Firms can also provide valuable roles for lawyers in areas such as talent development, client relationship management and law firm operations.

In all these instances, firms should remain open to lawyers changing from a more rigorous track to a less rigorous one, and vice versa, as individual circumstances shift.

Off-Ramps and On-Ramps

The catch-and-release approach to talent development remains prevalent in law firms. However, this obsolete approach squanders firms’ return on investment every time productive talent walks out the door. And the adverse financial consequences are even more devastating when they walk out with clients.

Instead, law firms should cultivate durable relationships with productive talent, emphasizing that lawyers who step away from the firm for family or other reasons will be welcomed back when the time is right, in roles that leverage their valuable experience. Further, firms should meaningfully support lawyers in rejoining the firm to ease the transition. This may include offering flexibility in work assignments and routines alongside assistance navigating shifts in firm dynamics and legal practice.

Through this approach, firms can benefit from the legal skills, business acumen and cultural understanding these lawyers gained during their earlier firm experience — a much better bet than hiring untested talent, who often prove a poor fit.

Contractual Relationships

Law firms should also consider building a stable roster of loyal contract-based and freelance lawyers to whom they can turn when business needs ramp up. Women with young children may welcome opportunities to provide this service to maintain their legal skills and industry involvement while preserving family time until they are ready to devote more attention to their careers. By the same token, structured relationships of this nature can provide valuable flexibility for the firm — and some of these lawyers may prove to be excellent and well-vetted candidates for future permanent positions in the firm. To make this strategy work, firms should ensure they treat contract lawyers as valued resources who are vital to the firm’s mission and culture, thereby building meaningful and lasting relationships.

Advancing Women’s Careers in Law Firms: The Takeaway

As talent shortages loom on the horizon, law firms should double down on attracting, developing and retaining productive female lawyers. An expanded menu of career pathways and staffing strategies can provide the flexibility that women, caregivers of all stripes, and your firm itself will find invaluable.

More Law Firm Growth Advice from Gene Commander

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Leveraging Agile Career Strategies to Retain Women Lawyers

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