After the Hackathon: Initiatives for Women in Law
Miller Canfield is pleased to announce that principal attorney Dawn Schluter’s team in the inaugural Women in Law Hackathon, the national competition held to identify paths to achieve gender parity in law firms, was awarded third place among nine teams in the final presentations that took place last week in Palo Alto at Stanford Law School.
Miller Canfield joined with 53 other large U.S. law firms, and the only Michigan-headquartered firm, to participate in this important and innovative national conversation on advancing the careers of women in the legal profession.
The Hackathon was a unique “Shark Tank”-style invitation-only competition. Over a period of six months, each six-lawyer team generated comprehensive presentations of actionable ideas to improve gender parity in law firms. Each team presented innovative projects and initiatives in a final competitive pitch meeting last week at Stanford.
All three of the top teams were awarded grant prizes to a non-profit of their own designation, as well as an animated presentation of their respective pitches.
Dawn’s Team 3 focused on "The Five Year Moment," the period of time 2-3 years before a woman attorney becomes a partner, and the 2-3 years after—a pivotal and often difficult time in a woman lawyer's career. Dawn's team presented concrete programs and tools for achieving business development by women, and measuring and assessing internal action to support and retain women lawyers during that "moment."
For the Bloomberg Law story on all the winning teams, see the story here.
