"You don't golf? Good, me neither! But let's get to know each other on a personal level and find out what we have in common and connect in an authentic way."

—Victoria Portnoy, Managing Director, Blackstone

As a young attorney, hearing stories of female Big Law partners proudly working on deals during active labor was fairly common—a shining example of the whatever-it-takes attitude that many firms and clients traditionally expected from their leaders. Short of being inspiring, these examples were more indicative of an environment that caused many women lawyers to rethink their career paths before they reached the upper echelons of the legal profession.