As Sullivan & Cromwell celebrates the promotion of four women to partner, experts warn that more work needs to be done industry-wide to shrink gender disparity in the partnership ranks.

Sullivan, which announced its promotion of four women and one man last month, attributed the boost in female partners to policies it put in place several years ago, such as maternity leave and flex-time, to retain women lawyers.

Brande Stellings, a senior director at consulting firm Catalyst Inc., said such policies are "an important part of the arsenal" for increasing the percentage of women partners.

But while women frequently cite work-life balance as a barrier to promotions, other issues are also important, such as lingering stereotypes or the under-representation of women in firm leadership positions, she said.

The proportion of women partners -- now 19.2 percent nationwide -- has increased only four points in the last decade, according to NALP, formerly the National Association for Law Placement. At those rates, Catalyst projects women will not pull even with men in their share of law firm partnerships until 2086.

Lisa Gilford, president of the National Association of Women Lawyers, said that during the last five years firms have moved toward greater flexibility in setting schedules. But that progress may be affected by the recession, she said. In a survey released Oct. 26, the association found that among part-time lawyers terminated by law firms in the last year, the "vast majority" were women. Gilford, a partner in Alston & Bird's Los Angeles office, called that a "disturbing trend."

Read the NALP, Catalyst and NAWL studies.

"It is a concern because those flex-time policies have been very helpful in retaining women," Gilford said.

Sullivan & Cromwell said it has had a flex-time policy since 1987. The firm also said two women named to the partnership in recent years worked flex-time schedules at some point in their careers, and one continued to do so after being named partner. Six percent of the firm's associates now work on flex-time schedules, according to H. Rodgin Cohen, chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell.

Cohen said 10 percent of the firm's current associates have at some time taken parental leave. In 2007, the firm increased its paid maternity and adoption leave to 18 weeks from 12. The move, which was followed shortly by other big firms, came at the recommendation of members of Sullivan's women's initiative committee.

When the firm surveyed its women lawyers, the extended leave was something that was mentioned, Cohen said, adding that the policies have helped the firm retain women into their eighth year as associates. From 1999 to 2001, Sullivan had 11 women on average in its senior associates ranks. From 2007 to 2009, it averaged 27, according to the firm.

Cohen stressed that the firm does not name partners on the basis of gender. The selection process "is totally merit based," he said. "But if you don't have women in the eighth year process to select, by definition, you're not going to have women partners."

Among the four women Sullivan named to partner recently, two had gone on maternity leave at some point in their careers. One, Whitney Chatterjee, a New York corporate lawyer who advises on hedge fund transactions, said she has taken advantage of the policy twice.

Having returned in August from her second maternity leave, Chatterjee said the firm and her partners had been very supportive, "making it a place where I wanted to work hard and continue to practice law for a long time."

Chatterjee said she relied on partner mentors to help her transition back to work after her four months of leave. Sullivan, which has some 700 lawyers firmwide, assigns transitional partner mentors to lawyers returning from maternity and adoption leave.

TREND AMONG FIRMS

Other firms also say flex-time and parental leave have helped them retain female talent. In 2006, Weil, Gotshal & Manges launched a flex-time partnership track. Today, it has four partners in that category, one of whom made partner last year, said Meredith Moore, director of diversity at Weil Gotshal.

"Those kind of things start to really pay off down the road," she said.

Stellings of Catalyst called Sullivan & Cromwell's promotions "notable," given how rare it is among firms generally to name partner classes that are at least half women. Nationwide, women made up 28.2 percent of the lawyers promoted to partner last year, according to data collected by the Project for Attorney Retention, which conducts an annual survey of 100 large national firms.

Among New York firms, the announcement of a majority-women partner class is not unprecedented. Cravath, Swaine & Moore both last year and the year before announced three new partners, with two women in each class. Shearman & Sterling named six women partners last year out of a class of 11.

But a class made up mostly of women remains uncommon. Davis Polk & Wardwell named four new partners in July, all men. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom included two women in the class of eight it announced in April. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz included no women when it announced six new partners last November.

In 2006, the most recent year for which data is available, one-third of partner promotions by the city's firms were women, according to a report by the New York City Bar.

For the last four years, Sullivan has named new partner classes that are at least 40 percent women, according to the Project for Attorney Retention.

Women now make up 17 percent of Sullivan & Cromwell's partnership ranks, slightly below the national average of 19.2 percent rate measured by NALP. The national figure was 15 percent a decade ago.

Cohen said it will take time for the firm to promote enough women to even out its partnership ranks.

"If you do this on a merit basis, it's going to be however the merit works out," he said.

The firm's associate ranks are made up of 35 percent women, according to NALP, which reports a national average of 45.7 percent and a New York City average of 45 percent.

On the recruiting front, "there's always room for us to increase our numbers so they look more like the law school classes," said Audra Cohen, a partner in Sullivan's mergers and acquisitions practice.

"Women are still making up 50 percent of the law school classes, but I don't think when we do our recruiting we focus on making exceptions or anything based on gender or race," Cohen said. "It's really all merit based. And we hope some of the policies we've put into place will help us attract some of these people."

Said Cohen, Sullivan's chairman, "I would suspect when I went to law school the number of women in my class was less than 10 percent. It just takes a long time from a standing start to get up to normal speed. So it will take quite some time."