The number of women listed as the top lawyers in the country is increasing, even higher than just five years ago. The most recent list of the top lawyers in the United States at Fortune 500 companies includes 21 percent women, while five years ago there were about 17 percent women. There was only one woman as a top head lawyer of a Fortune 500 company 25 years ago, showing a steady and significant rise of powerful women in the workplace, according to the New York Times.

These new numbers were released just a few days ago by the Corporate Counsel magazine. While the number is actually three less than the same time in 2012, it is still showing a good rise of women that are heading the legal departments of some of the top earning corporations in the country. There is also, not surprisingly, a higher number of women law school graduates and attendees, increasing the number of female lawyers in general.

Another impressive detail from this report is that five of these female lawyers head law departments of major aerospace and defense companies, something that has been traditionally considered a male profession. There were also nine women lawyers heading insurance industries, seven heading specialty retailers, and seven heading food consumer products, where they lead the company’s law department.

Among the 17 biggest corporations in the country, four of them have women as their leading legal position, which is either titled a chief legal officer or general counsel. Other well-known large corporations with women at the head of their legal offices are the United States Steel Corporation, Lockheed Martin, Honeywell International, Wal-mart Stores, and FedEx.



When looking at companies and corporations not in the Fortune 500 list, only about 17 percent of their top legal jobs were held by women, from companies listed between 501 and 1,000. According to the American Bar Association, only about 15.6 percent of women hold these top legal positions.

While the numbers for the top Fortune 500 companies is good and the steady increase is positive, it is also known that companies as a whole are not diverse in comparison between male and female employees, especially with their corporate legal jobs. The latest numbers of female partners in law firms located in the United States is about 19 percent, a number that hasn’t budged much in the last five years. Only three percent of women have full partnership or equity stake in their law firms.

The first corporate counsel promoted to the company’s top legal job was Mary Ann Hynes, leading the legal department of CCH Inc. in 1979. Twenty years later, there were 44 female head legal counsels, according to the ALM reports. This number today is now 106 women with these head legal jobs.