October.07.2015
Orrick has been recognized with a 2015 Gold Award from the San Francisco Healthy Mothers Workplace Coalition for the firm’s commitment to health, flexibility, family friendly policies and equity in the workplace.
The awards were presented at a ceremony held on September 14 at the San Francisco Federal Building. Orrick Senior Associate Katie Lieberg Stowe accepted the award on behalf of the firm and spoke on Orrick’s family friendly work policies, including the firm’s new industry-leading parental leave policy, which offers U.S. lawyers paid primary caregiver leave of 22 weeks with the option of taking a total leave of up to nine months before returning to work. Katie also addressed the firm’s onramping program, which supports parents returning to work by allowing them increase the intensity of their practice at their own pace, and its lactation accommodations for new mothers.
The Healthy Mothers Workplace Coalition is a collaboration of non-profit organizations, government agencies and employers created to improve the working conditions and health of new parents. The Coalition and its community partners developed the Healthy Mothers Workplace Award for Excellence in Maternal Health and Equity to recognize San Francisco employers with policies that support the wellbeing of their workers. Employers complete a self-assessment of their policies related to parental leave, lactation accommodations, and work-family balance. The assessment also asks employers whether their workplace has adopted certain policies identified by community leaders as integral for the health and equity of women in the workplace.
Orrick’s efforts to retain and promote women lawyers have been recognized on all three leading measures of the best law firms for women: Working Mother magazine and Flex-Time Lawyer’s Best Law Firms for Women list, Yale Law Women’s Top 10 Family Friendly Firms and the WILEF Gold Standard Certification, which recognizes success in advancing women to leadership. In addition, this year Euromoney Legal Media Group honored the firm with the award for “Best International Firm Mentoring Program” at the fourth annual Americas Women in Business Law Awards.