SHB Recognized for Integrating Women Lawyers into Leadership Positions

The Women in Law Empowerment Forum (WILEF) has recognized Shook, Hardy & Bacon as one of only four firms in the nation to meet all six criteria for its 2012 Gold Standard Certification, an industry measure of the progress law firms are making with integrating women into leadership positions.

“Shook, Hardy made the exclusive list of firms meeting all the requirements two years in a row,” Bloomberg noted in its coverage of WILEF’s announcement that 50 U.S. firms have received its 2012 certification for satisfying at least three of its six standards of measurement. WILEF certification requires that women equity partners in firms with more than 100 practicing attorneys in the United States satisfy at least three of the following criteria: 20 percent of equity partners, 10 percent of firm chairs and managing partners (firm-wide, U.S. or North American regional and U.S. branch offices), 20 percent of the firm’s primary governance committee, 20 percent of the firm’s compensation committee or its equivalent, 25 percent of the firm’s practice leaders and/or department heads, and 10 percent of the top half of the most highly compensated partners in the firm.

The certification is unique, in part, because “the determination by the Women in Law Empowerment Forum is made by measuring specific benchmarks of women’s achievements that address money and power, rather than family-friendly policies or initiatives,” Bloomberg reported.

WILEF, which has been assisting women in law to assume leadership roles for the past six years, launched the certification initiative in 2011 to “set the bar for all law firms to help recognize and promote women,” by identifying and singling out “law firms whose support for women has led to real results at the highest levels of firm management, leadership and compensation.”

“The reality is – the world is diverse. Juries are diverse, clients are diverse, customers are diverse,” SHB Partner Marie Woodbury told Bloomberg. “The most successful law firms need to be able to incorporate diverse perspectives in solving problems for clients, whether those problems are resolved in the courtroom, the board room or the marketplace.”

SHB will be honored at the WILEF Gold Standard Awards Luncheon in September 2012 at The Yale Club in New York City.

To read more about the award, please click here.