Kathleen Furey McDonough of Potter Anderson & Corroon.

As firms of all sizes grapple with a lack of diversity in leadership, midsize law firms in Pennsylvania are no exception.

But women law firm leaders in the region say a change may be taking hold.

Out of 75 Pennsylvania law firms with between 25 and 250 lawyers, just six have a woman in a top management position, such as firmwide managing partner or chair, according to data collected by The Legal's annual PaLaw report. The figure does not account for female practice leaders and office managing partners.

In recent weeks, three firms based in or near Philadelphia announced their first chairwoman or female managing partner. Philadelphia-based class action firm Berger & Montague elected its first chairwoman, Sherrie Savett; Kleinbard in Philadelphia announced that Mary Beth Gray would become one of its three managing partners in 2019; and Kathleen Furey McDonough became the first woman chair of Wilmington, Delaware-based Potter Anderson & Corroon.

Another firm in the region, Gawthrop Greenwood, announced the re-election of a management committee chair who had been the firm's first several years ago.

Announcements like those suggest a change in attitudes at midsize law firms, women law firm leaders said.

“In the last eight or 10 years we're seeing [more] women come up through the ranks,” said Theresa Loscalzo, a co-managing partner at Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis. “Even the lawyers I've dealt with at traditional, old-school firms … are now aware of the issues and are truly making an effort to create diversity in their own workplaces.”

Change Over Time

A big part of the change is simply timing, said Sandra Knapp, chair of the management committee at Gawthrop Greenwood, a 24-lawyer firm based in Chester County.

“We're all getting more experienced, and based on merit and skills, we're gaining leadership positions,” Knapp said. “There were so few women when I started 30 years ago, it's just taken time.”

Knapp was first elected as chair in 2011 and served until 2015, when she met the firm's term limit. She was re-elected to the post at the beginning of this year.

Having previously worked at Fox Rothschild, Knapp said it's sometimes easier for large law firms to make progress on advancing women than it is for midsize and small firms.

“There are more opportunities just by the size of the larger firm, and there are affirmative efforts to have female support committees and things like that, that in my experience you don't see at smaller firms,” Knapp said. “We do it informally [at Gawthrop Greenwood], but it's not set up that way.”

Still, some midsize firms have had diversity initiatives in place for decades, Loscalzo noted. Her firm, Schnader Harrison, was “founded on the premise of diversity,” she said, given that it was one of the first law firms in Philadelphia where Jewish, Catholic and Protestant lawyers practiced side-by-side.

“Women have always been in key roles in the firm, have always been involved in management,” Loscalzo said, noting that she is not the first woman to be a managing partner there.

In the legal industry in general, she said, changes appear to be taking place in stages.

“You can go back 30 years where there may have been intentional conduct that prevented women from advancing,” she said. Those attitudes largely faded out years ago, she said, but women were still left out inadvertently by many male leaders, simply by virtue of implicit bias—the tendency to “work with people who are like you.”

But now, Loscalzo said, “People are so much more aware of verbiage, activities or conduct that may be perceived, even if not intended, to thwart the advancement of a particular group.”

Inching Forward

Still, the legal industry at large has a long way to go toward gender equity.

Just as female representation in law firm leadership has improved in the Delaware Valley one firm at a time, the percentage of female equity partners is inching up, reaching an all-time high last year, according to the National Association of Women Lawyers.

But that all-time high was 19 percent among the 90 Am Law 200 firms surveyed, NAWL said. And they found that male lawyers still out-earn and out-bill their female counterparts.

McDonough, of Potter Anderson, said she hopes there comes a day when it's no longer newsworthy that a major Delaware firm elects a chairwoman. But that will not be the case, she said, until law firms do something about the attrition of women lawyers, particularly at the 10-year mark.

At her firm, she said, she plans to attack the issue in part by fostering an environment where lawyers, both men and women, can be open about their need for flexibility because of family obligations. It's commonplace for lawyers there to adjust their schedules or work remotely, she said.

“I don't know if 15 years ago we would have been quite as understanding,” McDonough said.

Gray, of Kleinbard, said she has thought since joining the firm that its numbers do not represent its attitude toward women in the law. The firm has 31 lawyers and four of them are women, according to its website.

Kleinbard's lawyer ranks are built largely on lateral hires, beginning with associates at about the fifth-year level, Gray said. So it can be more difficult to find female candidates due to the higher rate of attrition among women lawyers compared to men. As a managing partner, Gray said she hopes she can hire more women, and add more diversity to the firm in general.

“I'm thrilled to be that pioneer, and I will not waste that opportunity, I hope,” Gray said.