While progress still needs to be made, what the few women currently managing Pennsylvania law firms have proven is that despite being in the minority, they can do their jobs free of gender constraints.

There are early indications that hiring at premier law firms for summer 2011 will jump — in some cases by a lot — after plummeting this summer, according to sources at law schools and firms. Cravath and Skadden are among the firms whose summer class for next year could grow.

Much like their Am Law 100 counterparts, Second Hundred firms struggled in 2009 under the twin burdens of decreased transactional work and increased client sensitivity to litigation costs. With their regional footprints and — in some cases — more narrow practice focuses, Second Hundred firms had better year-over-year rates of growth than Am Law 100 firms as the recession took hold during 2008.

Dallas-based Haynes and Boone had been using Stratify’s hosted service to process ESI. But the firm found that an on-premise appliance saved lawyers’ time and clients’ money, reducing e-discovery costs up to 75 percent in some cases, says Thom Wisinski, the firm’s chief knowledge officer.

Patent-hoarding giant Intellectual Ventures has long beat the drum that it doesn’t file lawsuits. But now the company has started selling some of its 27,000 patents to people who aren’t afraid to sue — and in some cases IV will get a share of the prize.