Law Firms Must Normalize Working Parenthood to Retain Talent

Supporting new parents in the legal profession starts with an excellent parental leave policy. But retaining new parents, especially mothers, requires far more.

Leopard Solutions’ 2022 Women Leaving the Law survey reports that the majority of women who left large law firms didn’t depart to stay home with children. Rather, most leave due to diminished work satisfaction, lack of flexibility to manage both work and non-work obligations, and an overall lack of support in the workplace.

This is striking—it’s clear many women aren’t leaving law firms for full-time caregiving, as some assume. Instead, many female lawyers simply find themselves in ...