Contact: Mark Fefer, Marketing Communications, 206.757.8583 or markfefer@dwt.com
JUNE 12, 2019 – Recognizing the firm's "exemplary contributions" to increasing gender equity in the workplace, the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce honored Davis Wright Tremaine LLP with its Women in Business and Leadership Initiative "Business of the Year" award.
Said the Chamber: "Davis Wright Tremaine's leadership on gender equity issues has been driven most prominently through the firm's Project W initiative: a multifaceted, nationwide effort to help women build successful businesses and achieve parity in the workplace. Project W's work is undertaken through a network of investors, entrepreneurs, and business executives, via partnerships with innovative, like-minded organizations, and through created programming."
Project W has been a major contributor to improving the ecosystem for women entrepreneurs over the past year. Examples in Seattle include the following:
- Project W served as one of the primary sponsors for a Springboard Enterprises Dolphin Tank held at The Riveter on Capitol Hill. These unique, feedback-driven pitch sessions provide women entrepreneurs with constructive insights from knowledgeable professionals. Martha Phelps, counsel in the firm's tech transactions practice, served on the expert panel. This was the second Seattle Dolphin Tank the firm has helped organize and present; the previous one focused on health tech.
- Project W hosted an invitation-only gathering of women fund managers and investors for a discussion of ways to increase women's access to venture capital and private equity. Lynn Loacker, the New York-based leader of Project W, attended.
- Multiple Davis Wright Tremaine lawyers assisted with the inaugural "Ready Set Raise" accelerator program for women entrepreneurs presented by the Female Founders Alliance, including serving as workshop faculty and mentors. The closing demo day was held at the firm's office.
- Project W sponsored and hosted the first-ever Sigma Leadership Conference, which brought together 85 students from three under-served Seattle high schools for a full-day program designed to help the students envision themselves as future business leaders—with a focus on empowering female students in particular.
Davis Wright Tremaine has done other important work in addressing pay equity issues. Through webinars, seminars, and the development of a pay analysis tool, the firm's lawyers have taken the lead in advising clients on how to analyze and achieve equal pay. In March, on International Women's Day, the firm hosted a gathering of emerging HR leaders in Seattle to discuss strategies for achieving gender equity.
Also recognized at the award ceremony last week were Graciela Gomez Cowger, CEO of Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt, who received the WIBLI Female Leader of the Year Award, and Madeleine Winslow, a diversity and inclusion consultant with Mercer, who received the WIBLI Rising Star Award.
About Davis Wright Tremaine
Davis Wright Tremaine LLP is an AmLaw 100 law firm with more than 550 lawyers representing clients based throughout the United States and around the world. The firm has been widely recognized for diversity success. The leading industry publication Law360 recently ranked the firm #3 nationwide (among comparably sized firms) in its annual list of Top Law Firms for Women. T-Mobile honored the firm with its 2018 Diversity Excellence Award and Microsoft named the firm the top performer in its 2018 Law Firm Diversity Program. For more information, visit www.dwt.com/diversity.