Archive for September, 2014

One-third of OnRamp Fellowship participants belong to minority groups.

DORA DE LA ROSA: “I really didn’t see a pathway back into Big Law,” the fellow said. “But this program has just been fabulous. It’s great to be able to commit to the work without feeling guilty.”

Dora de la Rosa was on the path to a career in the upper reaches of the legal profession. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, she was the first in her family to go to college and upon graduation from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law in 1986 quickly found a job in the Los Angeles office of a large national law firm.

Two years later, she gave birth to her first child. Given the demands of her ­profession, “I quickly realized that it was going to be difficult to parent the way I wanted to,” she said. De la Rosa would spend the next 12 years balancing family life with jobs at smaller firms or part-time before leaving the law in 2000 to focus on her two children and community activism.

Flash forward 14 years — de la Rosa’s children are in college and she has reclaimed her legal career as an associate in Sidley Austin’s real estate transactions practice. She is one of nine women re-entering the legal workforce through the OnRamp Fellowship, which places women who have been out of the profession for at least three years into one-year positions paying $125,000 at large firms.

The program represents a small step toward changing the perception that major law firms are not places where women or minorities thrive, founder Caren Ulrich Stacy said. Women made up nearly 45 percent of law firm associates in 2013, according to the National Association for Law Placement, but slightly more than 20 percent of partners.

The attrition rate for minority women was even higher — they comprised 11 percent of associates in 2013 but 2 percent of partners. Family demands are a leading reason why women leave large firms, while minorities often report feeling socially isolated and lacking mentors.

The OnRamp Fellowship, launched earlier this year, enables women lawyers to update their skills and professional networks and prepares them for leadership roles within the profession. It is loosely based on reentry programs in the corporate and financial worlds.

“I really didn’t see a pathway back into Big Law,” de la Rosa said. “But this program has just been fabulous. It’s great to be able to commit to the work without feeling guilty.”

Four law firms hosted the first nine fellows: Baker Botts; Cooley; Hogan Lovells; and Sidley. But interest has been so high — more than 30 large firms expressed interest — that Stacy announced on Sept. 22 that 11 additional large firms would offer fellowships, for a total of 75 positions around the country. Those firms are Akerman; Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berko­witz; Blank Rome; Crowell & Moring; Fenwick & West; Fish & Richardson; Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson; Jenner & Block; K&L Gates; Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe; and White & Case.

HIGH DEMAND

“I had a little trepidation initially, wondering, ‘Are women going to want to come back?’ To my surprise and delight, 170 applied for the first nine spots,” Stacy said. “Many of these women are still ­balancing work and home, just as they were five or 10 years ago when they left, but this gives them the chance to see if they can balance things better.”

One-third of the fellowship applicants thus far have been racially diverse attorneys, Stacy said. The same proportion won fellowships.

There was a single African-American partner at the large New York firm where Dana Glenn worked as an associate in 2000 after graduating from Fordham University School of Law. She quit after two years to be closer to family in Michi­gan and ultimately left the profession for 10 years. She decided to reenter the practice in 2010 and landed at Hogan Lovells on an OnRamp fellowship.

“I didn’t really think it would be that hard to get back into it, but it was quite difficult,” she said. “You are behind in the law and you are competing with people right out of law school, which is a big challenge. Then you have to deal with people who don’t believe that you’re serious about coming back.”

Her recent experience has been positive thus far, in part because of the support the OnRamp program offers fellows in the form of mentors, webinars and support from other fellows, Glenn said. She found the firm and the profession had grown more serious about diversity in her absence.

“They thought the biggest challenges would be getting updated on the law, but it’s the technology or firm systems that are more challenging than they expected,” Stacy said. “You no longer go to a file room. You go into a document management system.”

Caren Ulrich Stacy worked in recruiting, professional development and “everything relating to the life cycle of an attorney” as she describes her decades-long career in law firms that included Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and Arnold & Porter LLP.

Last year, while working for a consulting firm that researched law firm metrics, she saw a gap. Law firms, after years of retrenchment, needed to hire, and some women, after years of staying home, wanted a way to return to work.

She came up with the idea for the OnRamp Fellowship.

“The first thing I did was to call every consultant I thought was good and asked if they would help these women if I could find firms to hire them.” she said. “They all said yes, and agreed to donate their time.”

She then asked four firms — Baker Botts LLP, Cooley LLP, Hogan Lovells LLP and Sidley Austin LLP — to take part in the experiment and they all agreed.

The program, launched in January, has so far placed nine women returning to practice in one-year fellowships. One hadn’t practiced law for 21 years.

This week, 11 additional firms joined the program. Those firms — Akerman LLP, Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz PC; Blank Rome LLP; Crowell & Moring LLP; Fenwick & West LLP; Fish & Richardson PC; Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP; Jenner & Block LLP; K&L Gates LLP; Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP; and White & Case LLP — along with the original four — are now posting more than 75 jobs on the program’s website, Stacy said in a telephone interview.

Securing a job is rigorous. Applicants must go through a three-hour screening, which includes a personality and skills assessment, writing test, culture questionnaire and behavioral interview.

Law firms also are vetted, in a sense. Firms “must agree to do a cultural analysis so we can make sure the candidate will be a good fit. And, we do a ‘bright spot’ analysis as well where we interview the firm’s best lawyers to understand what they do to make them successful,” Stacy said.

The women are interviewed by lawyers at the firm and those who are selected as fellows are provided with a partner who acts as an adviser, an external career counselor, unlimited online continuing legal education through the Practicing Law Institute, and a variety of training from experts in areas like negotiations and technology, she said.

The firms and the lawyers have been flexible in figuring out their roles and their salaries. While they might be considered mid-level associates, Stacy explained, “the pay is less because the billable-hour requirement is less, as is the billable rate.”

Two law schools have programs for lawyers with gaps who want to return to practice. Pace School of Law in New York runs “New Directions for Attorneys,” a part-time, five-month program that combines classes with internships. Washington College of Law of American University has a “lawyer re-entry program” as well.

The nine original OnRamp fellows are all working full time. Stacy says she’s pleased with the program, while acknowledging the hiccups along the way. Technology is often the biggest hurdle, she said, but because the women are smart, they have adapted.

One of the women, in her first week at work, was stymied when a partner asked to “PDF something.” The woman, she said, “didn’t know if PDF was a noun or a verb. Fortunately she Googled it and figured it out pretty quickly.”