Law firms credit family-friendly benefits like day care with drawing the best and the brightest to their firms, and now they're offering college-admissions consulting to help lawyers and staff navigate their children's college placement process.

The idea is catching on at larger law firms, who say cutting-edge benefits are a key retention tool and that college-admissions consulting helps a different segment of their employee population from those likely to use other key benefits such as on-site child care or nursing-home insurance.

DLA Piper; New York-based Kelley Drye & Warren; Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman; and Reed Smith have rolled out programs since last summer.

College admissions consulting company College Coach of Watertown, Mass., for example, said the company is working with 10 firms, including Bingham McCutchen and New York-based Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, and is in discussions with several other firms.

The college-coaching programs, typically, offer on-site seminars that are also accessible online, a telephone or an in-person counseling session and access to a help desk for questions.

FIRMS ARE 'BENCHMARKING'

The 10-year-old College Coach traditionally signed up corporations, but law firms have recently been receptive, said president and CEO Michael London.

"Certainly, a lot of firms are benchmarking themselves against one another," London said.

Offering college coaching is one more way for DLA Piper to differentiate itself among potential recruits, said Clarissa A. Peterson, the firm's chief U.S. people officer.

"[We want] to be an employer of choice and a place where people make an overt decision to join us because we offer a value proposition that might be higher than a competitor," Peterson said.

About 200 people participated in the inaugural October for parents of high school juniors and seniors, either on-site in Chicago or remotely, Peterson said.

DLA has since offered follow-up programs on topics such as study skills for parents of children at other ages, she said. "It's been a very well respected benefit," Peterson said. "People enjoy it and have given us great feedback about how much they like it."

Reed Smith rolled out the college-coaching program this year as a way to reach lawyers and employees at a particular stage in their lives, said Carolyn P. Mariano, the firm's U.S. director of human resources.

The program fits into a range of benefits for employees facing different life issues, such as those seeking nursing home-type insurance for elderly parents or themselves, Mariano said.

The first program was an interactive Web seminar in March that drew 52 participants, including a few spouses and children of lawyers or employees, Mariano said. After the seminar, 100 percent responded favorably to a survey question about whether college-coaching services "increased your positive feelings about working at Reed Smith," Mariano said.

"It's important to offer a wide range of choices, so there's something that's going to appeal to everybody," Mariano said.

Having on-site college-coaching programs also helps employees juggle work and the college-admissions process, said Pillsbury Winthrop benefits director Linda Lew.

"It saves a lot of time for them," Lew said. "They can do a great deal of it from the office. It's convenient as well as accessible."

Kelley Drye rolled out the college-coaching benefit last fall primarily for staff because they're less likely to have the means to hire private tutors, said New York partner and executive committee member Jonathan Cooperman.

"[It] was intended to be fairly creative and give [some people at the firm] an opportunity they wouldn't have had," Cooperman said.

Yet Cooperman, whose eldest child is a high school junior, has also used the service to start navigating the college-admissions process.