Faegre Baker Daniels Named to Nation's 50 Best Law Firms for Women

Working Mother magazine has named Faegre Baker Daniels one of the 2017 Best Law Firms for Women. The list recognizes 50 U.S. firms for using best practices in retaining women attorneys, advancing them into leadership roles and implementing work-life balance initiatives.

Faegre Baker Daniels strives to promote gender equality within the firm through its processes, policies, practices and programming. The firm’s management board is 23 percent female, the executive committee is 20 percent female and the partnership is 27 percent female. 

“As a profession, we still have much room for improvement, but every year Working Mother shows us that progress is being made to support professionals who are parents,” Managing Partner Tom Froehle said. “FaegreBD is committed to continuous improvement in creating a more diverse and inclusive workplace. We are honored to be part of this positive shift and to be recognized once again for the strides we’ve made toward that goal.”

Over the last 10 years, the percentage of female equity partners has increased to 20 percent from 16 percent, and female non-equity partners have grown to 30 percent from 22 percent at the Best Law Firms. This year, the Best Law Firms employ more female equity partners (20 percent) than the national average (18 percent). Working Mother’s data also shows that 83 percent of the top firms have at least one woman among their top 10 rainmakers, and the number of paid weeks of maternity leave offered is increasing.

Meredith Bodgas, editor-in-chief of Working Mother, says, “The Best Law Firms for Women are not only setting the standard for the modern-day law firm in supporting flexible work arrangements and offering generous paid leave but also ensuring that lawyers who take advantage of these programs are not excluded from the partnership track.”

For the first time in 2017, Working Mother worked in collaboration with the ABA Journal as a knowledge partner.

About the Methodology

Law firms completed an extensive application in the areas of workforce profile, flexibility and development, and retention of women. Best Law Firms were selected from a pool of self-selected applicant firms with 50 or more lawyers in the U.S. Statistics reported are aggregated from data provided by the firms collected from the full year of 2016.

About Working Mother Media

Working Mother Media (WMM), a division of Bonnier Corporation, publishes Working Mother magazine and its companion website, workingmother.com. WMM’s mission is to serve as a champion of culture change. Working Mother magazine reaches more than 2 million readers and is the only national magazine for career-committed mothers.