Breaking the Mold

Pillsbury is a dynamic full-service law firm with market-leading strengths in the energy, financial services, real estate and technology sectors. They employ over 800 lawyers who serve clients throughout the US and internationally, including in the key financial markets of New York, London, Tokyo and Shanghai and who have been rewarded by recognition in 2008 Best Lawyers in America list, in volumes of the 2007 Legal 500 as well as in the 2007 PLC Which Lawyer? annual yearbook. Always forward thinking as well as professionally adept, the law firm’s environmental practice has been named “One to Watch” according a 2007 survey of top Southern California Law Firms published in the Los Angeles Daily Journal and recently was named the number one law firm worldwide for global sourcing according to the Black Book of Outsourcing. Impressive; but then this isn’t the whole picture.

This year Pillsbury was also named to 2007 Working Mother/Flex-Time Lawyers 50 Best Law Firms for Women, as well as making it into the publication’s 100 Best Companies for working mothers. This year the law firm also earned 100 percent in the Corporate Equality Index released by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, which measures companies' treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees.

So how has Pillsbury managed to break away from its old image? About eight years ago, Mary Cranston and Marina Park became the first women to co-lead a top American law firm as chair and firm managing partner respectively (although the firm is now lead by Chair Jim Rishwain). That was also the time that Deborah Johnson – Chief Human Resources Officer at Pillsbury – joined the firm. After looking into some of the firm’s existing policies, “we set about turning the firm into a great one to work for, particularly for women and especially for working mothers,” says Johnson. “That’s when we adopted a number of new practices.”

This change wasn’t a one-off, and since then the firm has been fine-tuning its praxis. Last year, Pillsbury undertook a firm-wide survey of all partners and associates to find out what was important to them, in terms of part-time or flexible work arrangements. Their primary goal was to work out whether attorneys felt there was any stigma associated with working less than full-time, and if there was, what could be done about it. “We asked what the lawyers or attorneys thought best practices were in managing part-time or a flexible schedules, while still meeting the need of clients and, in the case of associates, the partners. It was a comprehensive survey, from which we gleaned so much great information which helped inform some of our current initiatives.”

After seeing the results, once again, Pillsbury decided some of their policies were out of date. “We made some additional changes and decided to use one of our largest practice sections as a pilot group for how flex-time/part-time best practices really worked. At the end of this year the plan is to roll out a set of best practices to guide practice section leaders in their efforts to better manage these arrangements.

“There are always challenges in managing flexible working,” Johnson says. “In some groups or offices there’s more openness and flexibility than in others. For instance, there was a period of time we were promoting telecommuting, and people were appalled by it – they thought it wouldn’t work. It has evolved over the years and is now generally accepted.” Because Pillsbury has so many offices in the US, telecommuting has also proved useful in greater inter-office collaboration. Johnson says the gradual change in the way people approach work and where they do their work has also helped gain acceptance for more nontraditional approaches.

The future recruiting drive

Pillsbury’s recognition by external entities like Working Mother for being a good place to work pays testament to the work they have done to improve the firm’s working environment. They have developed their recruiting materials for people they are trying to attract to the firm, communicating to them about firm life beyond the work that they do and the clients they serve. These materials focus on things like their pro bono work, community outreach and some of the special programs they run.

An example Johnson gives me is a “We have a special program for nursing mothers. ,” says Johnson, giving me an example. “When someone is coming back from maternity leave they often feel a little bit alienated and nervous about getting back into the swing of things. We work very closely with our returning mothers and provide a lot of special support to them.” This particular program was only started this year but has already been well received at the firm.

Johnson also tells me about Pillsbury’s talent development strategy. This has involved looking throughout the firm at how the recruiting process is working, who is being recruited, the successes and failures, what the mentoring programs are like and their effectiveness. “We’re looking at the entire spectrum; the lifecycle of an employee, if you will. We brought together a multidisciplinary team to discuss how to improve our recruiting efforts, mentoring programs, and to ensure we’re providing the kind of education and training that people really need.”

In terms of moving forward and fighting the talent shortage, the most exciting thing that Johnson points to in this development is at the back end of the employee lifecycle spectrum. “If we look over the last ten years, before we had some of our family friendly practices, we probably lost some attorneys we’d like to inspire to think of us again. As part of our alumni outreach we’re going to see if we can recapture some talent that got away” Developing an alumni outreach program in this way will be an excellent source of talent in these lean times. They know the talent is out there, they know the talent is good enough to work for them: now, they’ve just got to lure them it back. But with these policies in place, it shouldn’t be too long before those attorneys come knocking.

BIO: Deborah Johnson – Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP

Deborah Johnson is the chief Chief human Human resources Resources officer Officer for Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. In addition to overseeing all HR-related functions, she is a member of Pillsbury's five-person executive committee, the firm's leadership body that establishes the firm's business and operational priorities, shapes the firm's direction and set policies such as those related to diversity and inclusion, which are then implemented by Pillsbury lawyers and staff as appropriate. Debbie has more than 20 years experience in law firm management, and holds an MBA from St. Mary's College. Prior to her law firm experience, she managed non-profit organizations, including those designed to divert adolescent offenders from the juvenile justice system.