Women often wonder what "having it all" means — and whether one even can have it all. At times, many women even have a hard time defining what "it" is.
The ongoing discussion about female success in the corporate world comes at a time when only 15 percent of equity partners at more than 200 large law firms are women.
FordHarrison is only one of five firms at which women account for more than 25 percent of equity partner ranks, according to the National Law Journal's annual partnership survey. About 26 percent of the firm's equity partners are female.
"It's worth celebrating the high number of FordHarrison's female equity partners," Firm Managing Partner Lash Harrison said. "It speaks to our firm's culture and our desire to broaden our leadership."
Attorneys from FordHarrison continue to help guide female colleagues through these questions. At the firm's recent Women Leaders Forum, a pilot group of participants examined the dilemma of "having it all" and its accompanying challenges.
"It is a topic that is relevant to women and men throughout the generations" Diversity & Inclusion Partner, Dawn Siler-Nixon said. "It is an individual and corporate issue that we wanted to address."
The forum included FordHarrison's women partners joining leaders from top corporations to discuss key issues related to gender equity in the workplace. Some of the participants included Rhonda Taylor, vice president, assistant general counsel of Dollar General, Lori McLaughlin, senior vice president and general counsel for The Devereux Foundation, Gina Donald, counsel for Tech Data, and Nicole Porter, general counsel for UT-Battelle, LLC.
"I thoroughly enjoyed the conference and don't remember ever attending anything like it," commented Nicole Porter. "It felt almost self-indulgent, which is good! It also caused me to reexamine work-life balance challenges and my long-held opinions," added Porter.