"Diversity works. It improves the breadth and quality of our practices and makes our firm more responsive to the varied needs of our worldwide clientele. The Firm's diversity and inclusion efforts strengthen our workforce while also making Mayer Brown more knowledgeable and dynamic.

  -Debora de Hoyos, Former Managing Partner

Driven by the leadership and active participation of former Managing Partner, Debora de Hoyos, the Women's Initiative Committee, and other female leaders at Mayer Brown, the firm offers a variety of initiatives and opportunities focused on the interests and talents of our female lawyers.

Women's Symposiums are hosted every other year for all female lawyers. These include workshops, panel discussions, networking receptions and presentations led by our female partners and leaders from the legal and business community. We are actively focused on opportunities to raise the visibility of our female lawyers, supporting their development through leadership conference participation, skill development programs and mentoring. We provide business development programs focused on issues unique to women attorneys and have held numerous networking events for our female attorneys and clients. In the past year, for example, our women attorneys have hosted women clients at a luncheon and private museum tour, a chamber music concert performed by female musicians (who discussed the career challenges they faced as women in their field), wine tastings and theater performances. We have partnered with the women’s groups of several clients for networking events and educational workshops. These programs have facilitated building relationships between our women lawyers and our clients, providing focused opportunities for our women lawyers not only to learn about our clients’ needs, but also to showcase their own talents. Each office hosts programs focusing on women’s professional development issues and periodic informal lunches for female lawyers to cultivate and strengthen relationships.

In recognition of the demands of balancing work and family, we have implemented programs for part-time work opportunities and back-up child care service. Mayer Brown recently increased paid maternity and parental leave for new and adoptive parents to 18 weeks for lawyers working in our US offices, inclusive of medical leave. In addition, Mayer Brown will offer a coaching program to provide support to new parents returning to work from maternity, paternity, and adoption leave who are facing the challenges of integrating the demands of work and family life. We also offer up to six weeks paid leave for lawyers who need time to serve as a primary caregiver for elderly family members. In addition, Mayer Brown is a founding member and sponsor of the Project for Attorney Retention (PAR), which works to stem lawyer attrition at large firms by promoting work/life balance and the advancement of women in the legal profession. PAR, an initiative of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California Hastings College of Law, conducts studies, issues reports and shares its findings with member firms.