The Biggest Biglaw Firms With The Most Women Lawyers (2023)
An important ranking to show which firms are helping women achieve successful careers in the law.
Yesterday, thanks to the recently released National Law Journal 500 ranking, we found out which U.S.-centric Biglaw firms were the biggest of them all in terms of headcount. As a companion piece to the NLJ 500, we’ll now delve into the NLJ Women’s Scorecard, a ranking of the percentage of female attorneys and percentage of female partners at the largest 350 firms in the country.
For the purposes of this ranking, equity and nonequity partners were counted as partners, with staffing counts based on a firm’s average number of full-time equivalent attorneys in 2022. Temporary and contract attorneys aren’t included in the count. For a tie, the higher rank is awarded to the firm with more female equity partners.
As noted by the National Law Journal, women did well in law firms in 2022:
Looking at the responding firms as a group, women comprised nearly 40% of all the 151,000 attorneys included in the report. Women made up almost 24% of 34,300 equity partners, about 27% of 61,718 total partners, and nearly 50% of 72,444 associates.
Compared to the previous year’s report, the group increased female attorney representation about 1%, while female equity partner representation increased 1.1%, female partner representation rose 0.8%, and female associate representation ticked up 0.7%.
“There is a ton of momentum given the number of women graduating from law school, yet a lot of firms still have room to grow and create an environment that is conducive to women having a work-life balance that allows them to have robust careers and families,” [Nicole Dawson, chief people officer of Berry Appleman & Leiden,] said.
Without further ado, here is the NLJ Women’s Scorecard Top 10 for 2023:
- Berry Appleman & Leiden
- Fragomen
- Kubicki Draper
- Kaufman Borgeest & Ryan
- Cole Scott & Kissane
- Littler Mendelson
- Manning Gross + Massenburg
- Kelley Kronenberg
- Wood Smith Henning & Berman
- Constangy Brooks Smith & Prophete
You may be wondering where the largest, namebrand Biglaw firms appear on this list. While the majority of the top 30 firms on the scorecard have a headcount of about 300 or less, there were some exceptions, with Fragomen, Littler, Ogletree, Jackson Lewis, Cooley, Willkie Farr, Ropes & Gray, Lewis Brisbois, and Davis Wright Tremaine, all making an appearance.
Congratulations to all of the firms that succeeded in boosting their ranks in this year’s Women’s Scorecard by placing women in leadership roles and fostering a pipeline of female and diverse attorneys.
You can check out the rest of the rankings here.
The NLJ 500: Women in Law Scorecard [National Law Journal]
Women Attorneys Defining Purpose, Balance and Flexibility [National Law Journal]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
