Attorney promotes opportunities for women

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As the mother of three children, including twins, Linda Benfield had to find a way to balance her children’s needs with her career as an environmental lawyer.

Her balance meant working one day a week from home and often returning to work after the children went to bed.

“I wanted to figure out a way for it to work for me badly,” said Benfield, a partner at Foley & Lardner LLP. “I’m passionate about the fact that it can work for other women. I want to make sure that before a person gets discouraged, we support each other.”

Now that her children are 18 and 11, Benfield spends many hours encouraging women to find ways to make it work.

More than a decade ago, she helped form the Wisconsin Women Environmental Professionals group. It started with a few women getting together monthly for lunch and grew into a120-member networking organization of women working in environmental law or consulting positions.

At Foley, she co-chairs a national steering committee for the women’s networking group.

The group deals with work-life issues women face through regular meetings locally, regionally and nationally.

“I try to make sure women are visible in terms of work opportunities,” said Benfield, who joined the firm in 1989. “I try to make sure women have the same options as men for leadership positions, for positions for advancement and with clients.”

In her nomination of Benfield, Foley Managing Partner Nancy Sennett wrote, “She has distinguished herself as someone who is concerned with championing women in both her firm and her field.”

Sennett went on to note, “Benfield prides herself on being the chair of a national practice group for a leading law firm, in which a third of the lawyers are women. She also notes her practice group’s decision to recruit and encourage promising young summer associates, especially women, to choose environmental law as their area of practice.”

Benfield received her law degree from the University of Chicago in 1985 and chose to practice in environmental law because of all the legal changes taking place. She has more than 23 years of experience in litigation and counseling of environment law matters. The firm’s environmental regulation practice group — which she now chairs — has grown from six lawyers to 20 during her tenure, she said.

Outside of work, Benfield serves as a board member for both the Milwaukee Ballet and the Milwaukee Jewish Day School.

— Rosland B. Gammon