She became a partner in 1989 -- only the second female partner at the firm -- and was the first woman elected to its executive committee in 2003.
View full sizeJanet Callahan, of Manlius, is the first woman to become managing partner of a major legal firm in Syracuse. She's in her office at Hancock & Estabrook.Syracuse, NY -- When the AXA Towers building shook earlier this summer, one of the employees in the Hancock & Estabrook law offices rushed to lawyer Janet D. Callahan and asked if they should evacuate the high-rise structure.
Callahan said her first thought was, “Why are you asking me?” It hadn’t yet sunk in that she had recently been elected the managing partner of the Syracuse law firm and that was her decision to make.
Thanks to the “secretarial grapevine,” word quickly was received that the shaking on June 23 had been the result of a Canadian earthquake and not a problem with the building. So Callahan quickly quashed any talk of evacuation and told everyone they could get back to work.
Looking back on that, Callahan noted with a laugh it was the first decision she had to make as the new managing partner at Hancock & Estabrook.
Callahan, 54, of Manlius, is the first woman named as a managing partner of a major law firm in Syracuse, according to Hancock & Estabrook. There are a couple of women in managing partner posts in Rochester, but a 2009 survey by the National Association of Women Lawyers indicates only 6 percent of the managing partners at the 200 largest law firms in the country are women.
Sitting in her 13th-floor corner office overlooking downtown, Callahan — a native of Canastota — said she’s looking forward to the challenge of steering the 56-lawyer, 130-employee law firm for the next three years. “It’s a natural progression,” she said, noting she’s been with Hancock & Estabrook for 26 years after two two-year stints as confidential law clerk for state Supreme Court Justice J. Robert Lynch and Court of Claims Judge Thomas J. Lowery.
She started out doing legal research and writing for one of the Hancock & Estabrook partners before handling a mix of litigation and appeals work and moving up to head the litigation and appellate groups in the firm.
Callahan became a partner — only the second female partner at the firm at the time — in 1989, and was the first woman elected to the firm’s executive committee on which she has served since 2003. In June, the firm’s partners, 11 of whom are women, voted her into the top job at Hancock & Estabrook.
While Callahan said she suspects she will be subjected to greater scrutiny in the legal and business communities as the first woman to hold the top job, she said she has no fears taking on the task. “I have the support of a great executive committee and some great people behind me in the law firm,” she said. “I’m absolutely confident with them behind me watching my back.”
While much of the managing partner’s work involves the behind-the-scenes operations of the law firm itself, Callahan said she also serves as “the face of the law firm” at community, charity and client events.
Callahan said she intends to continue doing litigation and appeals work in addition to her managing duties. In fact, her first week as the firm’s top lawyer was spent in Buffalo representing a client in a products liability trial. The jury awarded damages less than what the client was offering to settle the case before trial. Callahan said that counts as a win in her book.
While the general economy has been gloomy for the past year, Callahan said the financial situation at Hancock & Estabrook has “amazingly” escaped the downturn. She said she hopes to keep the firm’s financial stability intact and work to further enhance its client services during her term.
Callahan said the lawyers at Hancock & Estabrook are “smart, independent, autonomous, creative people” who revel in providing excellent service to their clients. “That’s who Hancock & Estabrook is,” she said.
Contact Jim O’Hara at johara@syracuse.com or 470-2260.