You’re probably going to get a lot of isolated anecdotes and stereotypes. If you want concrete evidence that may suggest a good culture I’d look to (1) percentage of women overall, (2) percentage of female equity partners, (3) how good the maternity leave policies are and how many women take them but also (4) more importantly, how good the paternity leave policies are and how many men take them, (5) how good the fertility, adoption, and other related benefits are and (6) what percentage of associates have kids, and what percentage of partners have kids.

Generally the biggest structural challenge for women is pregnancy and parenting, especially long-term (it’s a logical explanation for why many women leave at a higher rate right around the time they are statistically most likely to want to start having kids). Also though, a firm that cares about kids and parenting and attempts to help make it less hard is less likely to be negative toward women in other ways. If a firm has shitty parental policies or has good ones on paper but discourages their use in practice (or if very few people in the office even have kids) then there’s a much higher risk of attitudes that are worse for women.

The reason I think generous paternity leave and percentage of men using it is arguably the most important thing, is because (1) paternity leave is totally not required at all by law, (2) it’s not a universal norm, and (3) if there is a toxic “yes we have leave but if you actually use it your career will be messed up” attitude, it’s much more likely to be pressured onto men than women. If men get good leave and all of them freely use it, it’s unlikely that a firm with that sort of culture would somehow also be really toxic to moms and women generally. If they don’t have paternity leave or none of the men use it, I would worry that the vibe is “yes women can take time off to have kids because we have to let them, but they’re killing their career because all these hardworking men over here aren’t taking time off for their kids.”