Press Releases
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PAR Announces 2011 Flex Success Award Winners
Contact: Manar Morales
Executive Director
mmorales@attorneyretention.org
301 580-2490
WASHINGTON, DC, March 30, 2011 — At its fourth annual conference today, the Project for Attorney Retention (PAR) is honoring two attorney-client teams with its Flex Success Award. This Award recognizes the crucial role clients play in making workplace flexibility a reality by honoring those attorney-client relationships that best exemplify how with client support, attorneys can work reduced hours on flexible schedules, deliver exceptional legal services, and have extraordinarily successful careers.
The 2011 PAR Flex Success Award is being presented to Alice Valder Curran, an equity partner with Hogan Lovells US LLP in Washington, DC, and Dorothy Watson, General Counsel of her client, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation; and Janie F. Schulman, an equity partner in the Los Angeles office of Morrison & Foerster LLP, and her client, Jerene Baglin, a human resources consultant. Both law firms are members of PAR.
“Both attorney honorees have practiced on a reduced and flexible basis for more than a decade and have demonstrated their leadership not only within their respective law firms, but also in the larger legal community. They are role models for all attorneys,” said PAR Executive Director Manar Morales. “The clients with whom they are sharing their Award are also deserving of recognition and praise. In both cases, the client honorees were aware of the attorneys’ reduced hours arrangements and respected their work/life balance, while simultaneously advancing their careers by expanding their respective books of business.” Morales added, “Of course, they were receiving excellent client service, so making the arrangements successful was a win-win for everyone involved.”
The Honorees:
Alice Valder Curran, an equity partner in the Health Practice Area at Hogan Lovells, has worked a reduced hours schedule since she joined the firm as a mid-level associate in 1998. She chose the firm because of its “commitment to workable part-time arrangements and fair compensation for actual time worked” over other firms that had “time-limited” or vague reduced-time arrangements. During her tenure she took two six-month maternity leaves, and continued to be promoted up the ranks to equity partner in 2007 — all while working a reduced schedule. Her schedule has varied from 55% to currently 75% of the firm’s standard billable hours. Typically, she is in the office four days per week — arriving early and leaving by 4:30 p.m. — and works from home the other days as necessary. Despite her reduced hours arrangement, Curran is a leader both within the firm — serving on the firm’s global life sciences industry sector team and the firm’s client group — and in her field as a nationally recognized expert on federal price reporting and discount programs involving pharmaceutical products, who is widely sought after to speak at industry conferences. Her client, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, has contributed to her success, working with her since her days as Counsel and steadily expanding its work with her over the years. Many of the legal and business personnel at Novartis know of her reduced-hours arrangement and support its success through reasonable deadlines and a “collegial and trusting lawyer-client relationship built on shared values” — the recognition of the importance of life outside the workplace.
Co-Chair of the Employment and Labor group at Morrison & Foerster since 2010, Janie F. Schulman has worked on a reduced annualized hours arrangement — fluctuating as needed from 50% to 70% of a full-time partner’s schedule for thirteen years — almost the entire time she has been a partner. Schulman, who has spent her entire career at MoFo, became a partner in 1995, and began working a reduced schedule when she returned from a six-month maternity leave after having her first child in 1998. Initially, she worked four to five hours a day and gradually increased her hours, to 70% as her two children grew older. Schulman’s schedule allows her time not only to spend with her family, but also permits her to write, speak, and be actively involved in pro bono and community service work. While the longevity and fluidity of her arrangement as well as the leadership positions she holds within the firm clearly evidence the success of the arrangement, Schulman’s twenty-plus year attorney-client relationship with Human Resources Consultant Jerene Baglin is testament to this professional success story. Baglin, who has held a number of human resources positions, has consistently sought Schulman’s employment advice and referred clients to her since the two met more than twenty years ago when Baglin was the human resources manager at Schulman’s pro bono client. As an HR expert, Baglin understands the importance of flexible work schedules to attract and retain talent, and the two often discuss the challenges of work/life balance.
PAR is housed at the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. PAR works to advance women lawyers and reduce attrition by improving work-life balance for all lawyers. This is the third year PAR has given the Flex Success Award. More information about PAR can be found on its website at www.attorneyretention.org.
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