Best Lawyers recently held its first event to honor women in the law.
The 100-attendee gathering at New York’s Del Posto on May 1 2014 was organized as part celebratory luncheon, part awards ceremony, and part discussion forum for general counsel.
Best Lawyers featured 2,627 New York City-based attorneys in the latest edition of The Best Lawyers in America, now in its 20th edition.
Of that number, 368 are women, and seven of those were named “Lawyer of the Year” and honored at the New York event.
Former Attorney Deputy General and WilmerHale partner Jamie Gorelick delivered the keynote presentation.
Also on the in-house panel discussion were Jeanine Arden-Ornt, head of legal at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center; Monique Forrest from Beiersdorf; Emily Kim from Success Academy Charter Schools; and Laurie Levin, chief legal officer of Florida Hospital.
The initiative was led by Meredith Hinshaw, Best Lawyers’ director of publications and creative services in the company’s New York offices.
Meredith explained to me that Best Lawyers was looking to do something a bit different with its women in law program.
“Although there are more women in leadership positions in law firms now, a common theme among the female attorneys we spoke to was: ‘it’s better than it was, but still bad’. So we felt we should do something in an intelligent way. We didn’t just want to take the female lawyers from our lists and sell ads against them, but to bring the best female lawyers together through a small, selective gathering.”
Meredith said that feedback from the first event had been positive, and there are plans to expand the concept and roll out similar events in other cities.
Photos by Vik Manchanda at GoPreserve
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