Bucking a nationwide trend among law firms of subpar female representation at the partner level…

Law360’s inaugural class of Ceiling Smashers have shown a commitment to gender equality.

[source: Law360] This year’s Ceiling Smashers are the 25 U.S.-based law firms out of nearly 400 surveyed that have the highest percentage of female partners. These firms run counter to a sobering statistic from Law360’s Glass Ceiling Report: 2014, which found that while women make up 43 percent of the nonpartner ranks at U.S. law firms, they comprise just 21 percent of partnerships.

Methodology: Law360 surveyed U.S. law firms in early 2014 and received responses from roughly 380 firms with male and female attorney head count information. Only U.S.-based law firms were surveyed, and only head count numbers for U.S.-based attorneys were included in the results. For the purposes of this ranking, “partner” includes both equity and nonequity partners for firms that use a multitier partnership structure.

Head count numbers are as of Dec. 31, 2013. Only firms with more than 50 domestic attorneys — roughly 98 percent of respondents — were considered for the Ceiling Smasher designation. Firms appearing in the Law360 400 that did not submit attorney head count data were not considered.