Women made significant strides in securing the top leadership posts of multidistrict litigation, with a record 35 percent of lead counsel roles going to them last year, according to Law.com research and analysis of statistics from the federal judiciary.
The study showed that measure of women leadership far outpaced those reported in 2017, when women made up 21 percent of lead counsel positions in multidistrict litigation. The shift comes as women have been gaining ground in selection for leadership positions of all kinds in multidistrict litigation, particularly in the past four years. Also, 2018 was the first year that white men made up fewer than half of the judges named to preside over MDLs.
