May 26, 2008 8:35 PM

If You Want More Women Partners...

Posted by Aric Press

I recently listened to a panel of managing partners lament their lack of women partners. They were frustrated: They had tried all sorts of plans. They were needy: Their clients wanted to see more women, and they themselves didn't like losing talented lawyers. And they were weary: As one said, the energy on this issue was gone.

As I went into my bobblehead routine, I had an epiphany. Folks, if you want more female partners, make them.

The nature of partnership has changed. And yet when we talk about female partners, it's as though we are still mired in 1985 and there is only one model--the all-in, do-or-die, scale the north face of Everest or don't bother coming in tomorrow.

Hello? That's over, at least at the vast majority of firms that operate as two-tier partnerships. These include some of the most successful firms in the world. (Most of the exceptions are high-performing New York firms, where partnership is guarded as closely as virginity once was.) Whether that's a good or bad trend we can debate, but it's a real trend.

The single best advantage to a multitiered partnership is not that it allows managers to manipulate their profits per partner numbers--that's such a twentieth-century reaction. It's that it allows managing partners to manipulate their system.

When it comes to promoting women, the results of the current system satisfy no one. Applaud the firms for trying, for their arms-length embrace of part-time scheduling and their frequent conferences to debate on- and off-ramps. But it seems clear that many young women (and some young men, too, but that's a different column) don't aspire to raise their children with a BlackBerry in one hand and a business-class ticket in the other.

If you really want to change the results, you have to change the game. What if firms identified the top three fifth-year women and made the following offer:

You want to play in the regular tournament? Fine, stick around, and we'll vet you the old-fashioned way. But if you don't, we want you to stay anyway. You're really good. We don't care about the partner tournament. We care about your future, and we care about ours. We're going to promote all three of you to partner next year. Nonequity. Full-time or part-time work. A slight raise if we can afford it. A decent bonus at the end of the year. We'll commit to seven years. And then we'll see what happens.

The first thing that will happen is that we will have a few hundred new women partners next year within The Am Law 200.

And then we'll see. I am confident that some of these new partners will work out, that they will stay for decades, outperforming every expectation you can set.

Will this cause resentment? Yes. Those of you leading resentment-free workplaces will find a way to deal with that. Will this kill your culture and your fabled meritocracy? No. Especially if you choose candidates carefully. Will you have to make accommodations with work schedules; will some partners work harder than others; will one-size-fits-all no longer apply? Yes, yes, and yes. But of course that's already the case at most of your firms anyway.

Do I dare recommend adding to your second tier of partners in the same year that consultants are warning that you have too many already? You bet. One problem at a time, please. Tolerating unproductive nonequity partners is your choice. My point here is that making more women partners is, too.

You can act, or you can complain. Speaking as a member of the audience, complaining gets tedious. Let's get on with it.

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