Don’t Want to Lose Female and Minority Partners?

Leaders of mid-size firms have good reason to be rattled by this recent piece on the surge in women-owned law firms. Women and minority lawyers who leave their firms before or after making partner are founding firms of their own and creating cultures that value the qualities they could not find in traditional firms: equal pay, full inclusion, and better career development opportunities. For years, firm leaders have argued that they invested less in young women associates because those women left when they had children. Well, this is the scenario ten years later: the ones who want to be rainmakers and bosses are going to leave because of that lack of investment.

While it’s true that many of these women-owned firms are small and focused on niche practice areas—and therefore not a competitive worry for larger firms—this trend does present firm leaders with a problem. How do you hold on to your women and minority attorneys when they have good career and personal reasons for striking out on their own? And are we really addressing issues of equality if we don’t make changes at the big firms, where women and minorities must succeed in order to ever really have true power in this profession?

Don’t lose these important members of your team. Instead of sticking your head in the sand, get proactive about supporting these lawyers and the growth of their business. Page 2 Communications can help you promote your women and minority partners and send them the message that they are valued. By devoting resources to helping them develop their brand identity and spread the word about their good work, you lessen the chance that they will jump ship, and that means spending money on them is in the best interest of the firm overall.