“The law firm is a service business. We don’t sell product: our greatest resource is human capital. So, we started our Women’s Initiative—we were one of the first law firms to begin such an endeavor—because we recognized that the face of the legal practice was changing. 50 % of law school graduates are women now; we wanted to attract the best of the best talent,” said Patrick C. Dunican, Jr., Chairman and Managing Director of Gibbons PC, a top law firm in the New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Delaware metropolitan regions.
Named one the nation’s top 200 firms by The American Lawyer, Gibbons recently won the Catalyst award for its Women’s Initiative. Christine Amalfe, Chair of Employment Law at Gibbons and co-founder of the Women’s Initiative 12 years ago, spoke of the importance of maintaining the firm’s commitment to the advancement of women, even in these difficult economic times. “In the law firm world, management changes a little more regularly than it does in the corporate world. Changes on the executive committee, rainmakers…lawyers come and go, especially women lawyers. Women have learned that they can walk away from firms that are not supportive and go to those that are supportive. We wanted to be on the receiving end.”
The Women’s Initiative at Gibbons provides professional opportunities for women including new and experienced Gibbons attorneys and Gibbons clients, to network, mentor and support the advancement of women in all professions. Amalfe justified the program’s expense, saying, “we have committed financial resources, hard work and sweat equity over many years to make things work. You can’t depend on what you said in 1997. In this economic environment, when firms are looking to cut costs and people are losing their jobs, you need to justify the existence of an initiative [which costs] a good amount of money every year. You justify it with the business case. There is no doubt that there is a business case for promoting, retaining and advancing women in law firms and in every company. And if the senior management gets that, even in difficult economic times, they will find a way to continue.” And, there is a business case for it, with Dunican crediting $6 million dollars of business to the Women’s Initiative. “Women [in our client organizations] are making the legal decisions. It is not the old boys’ club anymore.”
The Gibbons approach to the advancement and retention of women has several components, including education, internal and external communication, and organization of the firm around the business case and training and development. “First you have to educate…You have to tell your colleagues about how important it is,” adds Dunican, “and then you have to communicate…and for law firms like ours, this is ‘American flag and warm chocolate chip cookie’ stuff because our clients are asking us to identify our numbers; they are asking us how many women we have and then they look at us 5 years later to see how we are doing. This is really important to our business and we need to have a relentless focus on it.”
by Zoe Cruz (New York City)