For information about attorney retention, the advancemetn and retention of women attorneys, and work/life issues for attorneys, please visit PAR at www.pardc.org.

The Project for Attorney Retention (PAR) studies law firms’ retention and advancement of female attorneys and work/life issues in legal employment. Its work includes:

• Solving the Part-Time Puzzle: The Law Firm’s Guide to Balanced Hour Programs (NALP 2004). This book, authored by PAR’s co-directors, Joan Williams and Cynthia Thomas Calvert, is a nuts-and-bolts blueprint for firms that want to implement part-time programs that will increase revenues, reduce costs, improve recruiting, and result in more satisfied clients. Available at www.nalp.org and www.amazon.com.
  
  
• Balanced Hours: Part-Time Policies for Washington Law Firms (2001), an examination of the state of part-time programs in the District of Columbia and nationally, and discussion of best practices recommendations for firms that want to use non-stigmatized part-time policies as recruiting and retention tools.
  
  
• Better on Balance? The Corporate Counsel Work/Life Report (2003). Better on Balance looks at work/life issues for in-house attorneys, and includes a study of the attitudes of in-house attorneys, as clients, toward attorneys in law firms who work part-time.
  
  
• An “Opt-In” program for attorneys returning to the practice of law after childrearing leaves.
  
  
• The Leadership Academy for Women (LAW), a program to develop leadership skills in female partners.
  
  
• A panel of PAR-certified consultants legal employers can retain to assist in the creation and successful implementation of work/life programs and programs for women attorneys.
  
  
• A database (“The Scoop”) about work/life programs in law firms, available on PAR’s website.
  
  
• Ongoing studies of attorney retention issues in law firms, including work/life issues for small and medium-sized firms, compensation and business development expectations for partners who work balanced hours schedules, and the economics of reduced-hours work in firms.
  
  
• A book for balanced hours attorneys about professional success on a reduced-hours schedule (forthcoming 2007).
  
  
• A web log of current events affecting work/life issues for attorneys.
  
  
• Information and assistance for law firms, attorneys, bar associations, researchers, and others about balanced hours programs and retention of women, through articles, speaking engagements, training and consultations.

PAR is an initiative of the Center for WorkLife Law (www.worklifelaw.org) at the University of California Hastings College of the Law. It is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and other donors. For more information, please visit our website at www.pardc.org, or contact us at info@pardc.org or (415) 565-4640.