Jan. 13, 2012

LOS ANGELES — The National Association of Women Lawyers will present its annual Challenge Award to Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. next month at the organization’s midyear meeting in Los Angeles. NAWL President Heather Giordanella, a lawyer with Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, said the choice was easy. In a letter to Warner Bros. Deputy General Counsel Zazi Pope last week, Giordanella wrote that the studio’s legal department “exceeds the Challenge’s goals” of at least 30 percent female representation among chief legal officers. That’s a significant improvement since 2006, she said, when NAWL first laid out its challenge to improve the percentage of women in leadership roles in the legal industry from 15 percent to 30 percent by 2015. Law firms, on the other hand, “are still struggling to move the needle in the right direction,” Giordanella said in an interview Monday. “We have seen equity partnership numbers virtually remain the same for the last six years.” Pope, who leads the studio’s litigation department, will accept the award at a lunchtime ceremony at the Omni Hotel on Feb. 23. In an interview Tuesday, Pope said Warner Bros. provides leadership training for high-achieving women while supporting the need for a work-life balance. “There are so many women in key leadership positions in the legal department that it makes it easier to attract and retain highly qualified women,” Pope said. “I think we’re viewed as a company as being very supportive of women lawyers.” This year marks Pope’s 20th with the studio. A planning committee for the association’s midyear meeting selected Warner Bros. from roughly six nominees. Planning committee co-chair Sarretta C. McDonough, an antitrust and white-collar defense lawyer with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in Los Angeles, nominated Burbank-based Warner Bros. for the honor. erica_phillips@dailyjournal.com