Deborah Read’s position as a partner at the Cleveland law firm of Thompson Hine didn’t protect her from the worries of working motherhood. Although she wasn’t particularly concerned about the effect giving birth to daughter Lucie would have on her career, she “was always pressed for time and often felt guilty.”
But before Read faced her first parenting challenges 18 years ago, she was coming up with ways to make Thompson Hine a better environment for working women (and men), an effort that has continued through her 23 years with the firm. That alone sets her apart from her peers, according to fellow partner Heidi Goldstein.
“Deborah really is a true leader,” she says. “As far up the ladder as she’s climbed, she’s always reaching back to make sure she’s got others coming behind her. When she sees somebody who is as dedicated and motivated as she is, she is more than willing to do everything she can to support them.”
Read, the daughter of a manufacturing company expediter, learned about the pressures of raising a family while holding down a full-time job from her mother, who worked for various employers in and around their hometown of Greensburg, Pa., about an hour’s drive east of Pittsburgh.
It was an experience that set her apart from her friends. “Growing up in the ’50s, it was fairly unusual to have a mother who worked,” she recalls.
After graduating with a law degree from Boston University, she discovered that the demands of her chosen profession were particularly difficult for mothers to shoulder.
“When clients or lawyers for whom you’re working want to talk to you, they want to talk to you — and you better be available,” says Read, 52. The technology that makes communication so much easier today, she adds, was not available when she came to Thompson Hine in 1987.
“Being physically present was much more important to being available. When you have two individuals who are working in a family — and you have young children — being physically present every time somebody is looking for you is sometimes pretty difficult,” she says.
To make achieving that presence easier, Read lobbied for and won on-site Saturday child care during her tenure as chairwoman of the firm’s Lawyer Personnel Committee, the body responsible for the compensation and career development of nonpartner lawyers, during the 1990s. The Internet and cell phone technology eventually made the service unnecessary.
She also worked to implement Thompson Hine’s gender-neutral parental-leave policy, which provides six weeks of paid leave to a primary caregiver after the birth or adoption of a child — time off granted in addition to the disability period stipulated by a physician for a woman who’s just given birth.
More recently, she supported Goldstein’s push to implement a formal flextime policy, complete with a flextime-schedule coordinator, after the birth of her daughter. Such benefits, Read insists, are merely good business.
“Hiring and firing is expensive,” she says matter-of-factly. “If you lose good workers because you don’t have family-friendly policies, and then you’ve got to find and train new good workers, that’s not very efficient.”
In 2005 Read was nominated for a seat on Thompson Hine’s executive committee, which manages the firm’s eight offices — an unusual honor for a woman, as Goldstein points out. “If you look at the large firms around the country, a lot of them don’t have any women on their executive committees.”
Read refused to accept the position if it were offered only as a token-female role. “I wanted to be in the position because I was qualified,” she says.
One of her committee responsibilities is to spearhead recruitment of new lawyers, which she has tackled by developing a nationally recognized program to better integrate the hires by introducing them to Thompson Hine clients and introducing the hires’ clients to Thompson Hine services.
“People don’t automatically know our name,” she concedes. “But when people do learn about us, and they look at the press that we’ve received for this integration program, it is absolutely a selling point.”
Read’s advocacy for developing, promoting and retaining female employees is evident in her support of the firm’s Spotlight on Women, an initiative that consists of internal mentoring groups and external programming that brings local professional women together.
“Deborah is always there,” Goldstein says, whether it’s as an attendee or moderator of a panel discussion. She adds that Read has informally mentored a number of women in the firm, including herself. “She’s very good at providing strategic insight into how to make the right personal- or professional-development choices,” she says.
April Miller Boise, the partner in charge of Thompson Hine’s Cleveland office, adds that Read is willing to share that “sound counsel” — the result of intelligence, a variety of leadership experiences inside and outside the firm, and an ability to successfully navigate political situations — with women of all ages.
“She really takes the time to develop relationships with younger women partners,” she says. “She’s always available and open to sitting down with you.”
Read’s desire to help others isn’t restricted to the confines of Thompson Hine’s Key Center offices. She’s been involved in local charities ever since she moved to Cleveland. A passion for learning prompted her service as a board member and officer at the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation, a nonprofit that supports K-12 education throughout Ohio. Her love of the arts is responsible for her tenure as a PlayhouseSquare Foundation trustee and finance committee member.
“I don’t think I have ever been uninvolved in United Way since I arrived,” she adds.
Indeed, Read sits on United Way’s board of directors and executive and nominating committees and co-chairs the Health and Caring for All Vision Council, a partnership of public and private entities that undertakes various health and human services projects. She’s particularly enthusiastic about an effort that will provide electronic medical-records systems at most major federally qualified health clinics and free clinics in town — a boon to disadvantaged and uninsured patients with no regular doctor as well as the health care providers who treat them. Her volunteer work is motivated by a moral compass.
“I truly believe that I am a fortunate person,” she says. “It is part of my task in life to do things for people who are less fortunate than I.”