This is one of the key findings of the Project for Attorney Retention, a non-profit organization funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, issued today in its Interim Report. Law firms have a major incentive to listen to PAR's findings and recommendations. In large law firms, 43% of associates can be expected to leave by their third year and it costs firms, on average, more than $200,000 to replace one associate. When five associates leave, a million dollars walks out the door with them. Studies show that this attrition rate can be cut significantly through the use of effective part-time policies.

Current part-time policies typically suffer from a number of problems: attorneys work so many hours that a part-time attorney often works as much as a full-time worker in a non-legal job; part-time attorneys get less desirable work; part-timers are viewed as less committed to their profession; working part-time means removal from the partnership track; client contact, business development opportunities, and mentoring dry up once one ceases to work full-time; and part-timers are required to work extra hours to the point that some are back working full-time hours for part-time pay. Nevertheless, a small number of attorneys do work part-time and some report that they have made their part-time schedules an acceptable alternative to leaving their firms. "What law firms need is an effective way to find out whether they have a usable policy, or only a paper policy. Too often, attorneys today feel that existing part-time policies push them to the margins of legal practice and firm life," said Joan Williams, co-director of PAR.

PAR is an initiative of the Program on Gender, Work and Family at American University Washington College of Law and is supported by the Women's Bar Association of the District of Columbia. PAR's goal is to develop part-time career paths for lawyers that are professionally rewarding, not stigmatized "mommy tracks." A copy of the Interim Report can be found on PAR's website: www.pardc.org. Its final report, due out in late May, 2001, will provide benchmarks for testing the efficacy of part-time programs as retention tools, recommendations for creating workable reduced-hours programs, and a model part-time policy.

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