Women's Initiatives

King & Spalding strives to create an environment that develops and advances the professional lives of women in the firm. Through various initiatives, programs and events, we provide opportunities for our women lawyers to meet and interact with other female professionals and to build relationships with their clients, peers and firm leadership.

Women in Firm Leadership Roles

• Partners Sarah Borders and Tracie Renfroe are members of the firm’s 10-member Policy Committee. This committee is the firm’s primary governing body.
  
  
• Partner Sarah Borders is a Practice Group Leader (Capital Transactions & Real Estate) member of the firm's five-member Compensation Committee. This committee guides the equity partner evaluation and compensation process.
  
  
• Partner Carol Wood is the Practice Group Leader for the Houston Litigation group.
  
  
• Partner Megan Magruder  is a member of the firm's eight-person Partners Committee. This committee evaluates non-equity partners, sets non-equity partner compensation and recommends promotions to equity partner.
  
  
• Partner Grace Rodriguez is the Chair of the Associate Evaluation Committee, which evaluates senior associates and recommends promotions to partner and counsel positions.
  
  
• Partner Lisa Keyes is the Director of Professional Development and responsible for all lawyer professional development and training offered through the firm, including our nationally recognized King & Spalding University program. She also co-chairs the firm's Lawyer Development Committee.
  
  
• Partner Patricia Barmeyer is the head of the firm’s Community Fund Committee which distributes over $1.25 million annually to various causes and organizations.

Recognition

• King & Spalding was named one of the best law firms in the United States for retaining and promoting women lawyers, according to a 2010 survey released by the Project for Attorney Retention (PAR), an initiative of the Center for Work Life Law at UC Hastings College of the Law. The survey noted that King & Spalding was one of only 23 law firms nationwide whose 2010 new partner class was 50 percent or more female.
  
  
• In 2010, partner Patricia Barmeyer was appointed to the board of governors of the Center for Ethics and Corporate Responsibility at the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University.   
  
  
• Best Lawyers in America selected three King & Spalding partners as 2011 “Lawyers of the Year”. Elizabeth Tanis was chosen as the Atlanta Bet-the Company Lawyer of the Year, Tracie Renfroe was chosen as the Houston Environmental Litigation Lawyer of the Year and Chilton Varner as the Atlanta Appellate Lawyer of the Year.
  
  
• Elizabeth Tanis and Chilton Varner are Fellows in the American College of Trial Lawyers, considered to be the premier professional trial organization in the United States.
  
  
• Carol J. Brewer, a consultant in the Washington, D.C., international trade practice, was selected as the 2010 Outstanding Member of the Year by the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Organization of Women in International Trade (OWIT) for “her invaluable contribution of service and commitment to the organization.”
  
  
• Partners, Sarah Borders, Halli Cohn, Kathy Rhyne, Diana Weiss, Carol Wood  and Chilton Varner received rankings as exceptional legal counsel by The Legal 500 in 2011. The Legal 500 recognized the firm as a leading law firm in 17 practice areas and identified a total of 55 individual lawyers as exceptional legal counsel in their practice areas. Chilton Varner was designated a “Leading Lawyer” in the area of Product Liability and Mass Tort Defense: Pharma-ceuticals and Medical Devices.
  
  
• Dawn Jones was honored with the annual Spirit of GABWA Award by the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys for her extensive work and leadership to further the organization’s mission and goals. Ms. Jones also was honored with the 2010 Barbara A. Harris Award for Service to the Community from GABWA. She was selected as the recipient of the R. Pruden Herndon Service Award of the Gate City Bar Association for her ongoing service to the bar association, legal profession and community. And Ms. Jones was named the recipient of the Seth Kirshenbaum Diversity Award of the Multi-Bar Leadership Council for her work in promoting positive relations and fostering collegiality among state bar members through active involvement in state and local legal organizations. Ms. Jones also was elected to the board of governors of the State Bar Association of Georgia.
  
  
• Thirteen of our women partners are listed in the 2012 Best Lawyers in America.
  
  
• King & Spalding earned 114 individual rankings in the 2011 edi­tion of Chambers USA, including 14 women lawyers:
  
  
  • Carolyn Zander Alford
  • Patricia Barmeyer
  • Sarah Borders
  • Laura Bushnell
  • Constance Fore Dotzenrod
  • Amelia S. Magee
  • Margaret O’Neil
  • Tracie Renfroe
  • Katherine L. Rhyne
  • Grace Rodriguez
  • Kim H. Roeder
  • Elizabeth V. Tanis
  • Chilton Varner
  • Sara Kay Wheeler
    
    
• Ten of our women partners and counsel are recognized as 2011 "Georgia SuperLawyers" by Thomson Reuters with partners Patricia Barmeyer, Sarah Borders, Elizabeth Tanis and Chilton Varner listed in the “Top 100.”
  
  
• Partner Kathy Rhyne is identified by Thomson Reuters as a "Washington D.C. SuperLawyer."
  
  
• Four of our women lawyers in the Atlanta office have been named by AtlantaMagazine as 2011 Georgia "Rising Stars."
  
  
• Partners Tracie Renfroe and Nancy LeGros are identified by Thomson Reuters as Texas “Super Lawyers.”

Facts & Figures

• As of January 1, 2011, 49.7% of our associates were women and 19.4% of our partnership were women. As a comparison, the National Association of Law Placement (NALP) states the national law firms with more than 700 attorneys, have an average of 46.1% women associates and 19.2% women partners.
  
  
• 52.6% of the new associates who joined the firm in 2010 were women.
  
  
• Retired Partner Ruth West became the first woman elected to the firm's partnership in 1980.