Blank Rome Recognized as a 2021 Best Law Firm for Women by Seramount
Blank Rome LLP is pleased to announce that our firm has been named for the fifth year as one of the 2021 Best Law Firms for Women by Seramount (formerly Working Mother Media), in recognition of “utilizing best practices in recruiting, retaining, promoting, and developing women lawyers.” Blank Rome is among 50 firms that earned recognition in this year’s list, available here.
“We are honored to receive ongoing recognition by Seramount for our leadership in promoting family-friendly policies and initiatives aimed at advancing women attorneys,” said Grant S. Palmer, Blank Rome’s Managing Partner and CEO. “This has been a challenging year as our firm, and the legal industry at large, navigated the complexities of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Yet we remained dedicated to advancing our longstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion as well as providing enhanced professional and personal development opportunities to support the next generation of women leaders at our firm. We are proud of our advancements and look forward to our continued leadership and growth in this ever-important mission.”
Seramount’s 2021 Best Law Firms for Women application included more than 300 questions about attorney demographics at different levels, schedule flexibility, paid time off and parental leaves, and development and retention of women. This year, in light of COVID-19, several questions were added about the success of working from home for attorneys. In a formal press statement, Subha V. Barry, CEO of Seramount, noted that despite many women leaving the workplace since the onset of the pandemic, the “representation of women equity partners, and women lawyers overall, has increased,” and that their list of 2021 best law firms “stepped up and offered increased flexibility and new benefit programs to help this critical talent pool balance both work and homelife.”
“I am incredibly proud of our firm’s supportive initiatives and policies for our women attorneys, through progressive platforms such as our Women’s Forum, BR Parents Forum, and annual Women’s Leadership Summit and Women's Business Development Academy,” stated Deborah A. Skakel, Partner, Chair of Blank Rome’s Women’s Forum, and Co-Chair of Blank Rome’s New York office. “We look forward to continuing to find new approaches and opportunities to support and advance women in law and leadership—both inside and outside of our firm.”
In addition to Blank Rome’s firm-wide initiatives, our firm participates in various innovative programs and partnerships aimed at advancing women throughout the legal industry at large. Notably, our firm is an active participant in Diversity Lab’s industry-leading diversity and inclusion initiatives, including the Mansfield Rule program, which measures whether law firms have affirmatively considered at least 30 percent women, attorneys of color, attorneys with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ attorneys for governance roles, equity partner promotions, formal client pitch opportunities, and senior lateral positions. Our firm achieved Mansfield Certification Plus for the second year in a row after successfully completing Diversity Lab’s yearlong Mansfield Rule 3.0 program, and also signed on to participate in Diversity Lab’s newest iteration of the program, Mansfield Rule 4.0.
Earlier this year, Blank Rome was honored in Yale Law Women’s Top Ten Firms for Gender Equity & Family Friendliness Report for the fourth year in a row, received a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index for the sixth year in a row, and was listed in Exelon’s D&I Honor Roll.