Biglaw

The Biggest Biglaw Firms With The Most Women Lawyers (2022)

An important ranking to show which firms are helping women achieve successful careers in the law.

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TopWomenFaculty2019Yesterday, 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, while nonpartner or “other” figures include special counsel, of counsel, and staff attorneys. 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 thrived at law firms in 2021:

Pandemic aside, 2021 was a boom year for the legal industry, and that played out in the form of talent wars just as much as it resulted in increased profits. While head count remained relatively steady toward the top of the NLJ 500, career mobility continued to be highly dynamic across partner and associate ranks. In the end, overall head count at NLJ 500 firms rose modestly by 1.8% compared with the previous year. …

And there are other positive trends, as our Women Scorecard and LGBTQ Scorecard show: diverse representation at NLJ 500 firms continues to rise, with female lawyers more frequently taking a front-row seat across law firm ranks and diverse attorneys more often making partner or moving into leadership roles.

Without further ado, here is the NLJ Women’s Scorecard Top 10 for 2022:

  1. Berry Appleman & Leiden
  2. Fragomen
  3. Kubicki Draper
  4. Kaufman Borgeest & Ryan
  5. Littler Mendelson
  6. Manning Gross + Massenburg
  7. Hanson Bridgett
  8. Cole Scott & Kissane
  9. Wood Smith Henning & Berman
  10. 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, Jackson Lewis, Ogletree, Norton Rose Fulbright, Davis Wright Tremaine, Ropes & Gray, Gordon Rees, and Baker McKenzie all making an appearance in the top 30.

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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]

Staci ZaretskyStaci 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.

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