In recent years, serving on a board of directors has gone a long way from being the cushy sinecure it had been in days past. Thanks to added responsibilities brought on by the Enron debacle and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, directors' duties have increased exponentially, with frequent committee meetings, conference calls, and reading assignments. Worse, there's the possibility of permanently damaging one's hard-earned reputation when the company endures a corporate scandal or shows poor performance.  

Just last month, new Merrill Lynch C.E.O. John Thain felt it necessary to defend the brokerage firm's directors from angry shareholders who blamed the board for the company’s losses. And there was the blistering criticism of New York Stock Exchange directors over their role in approving former chairman Dick Grasso's $140 million pay package.

It's enough to make many top-level executives think twice before signing on to new board membership. M. Keith Weikel, for example, the retired C.O.O. of health-care provider Manor Care, serves on two boards now and has been approached about joining several others. But he's turned them all down. "In today's world, you have to be very sure that this is a company and a group you want to get involved with," he says.

There is a silver lining, however: increased opportunity for newcomers. As more companies discourage their C.E.O.'s from sitting on outside boards and require other top executives to limit the number of directorships they hold, it's becoming easier for newbies to make their way into the boardroom. Dennis Carey of recruiting giant Korn Ferry International says that about a quarter of the 100 directors he's placed during the last two years have been newcomers, compared with perhaps "a handful" six years ago. According to Julie Hembrock Daum, the North American board-services practice leader for Spencer Stuart, 21 percent of directors of Standard & Poor's 500 companies in 2007 came from the ranks of division heads and below, while that figure was only 7 percent in 2002.

"If there was ever a good time to try to get on a board, it's now," says Mason Carpenter, a professor of strategic management and a corporate-governance specialist at the University of Wisconsin School of Business.

Kathy Herbert can attest to that. The former executive vice president of human resources at supermarket chain Albertsons, Herbert was unsure what her next step would be after a big corporate merger in 2006. While still working at Albertsons to help with the transition, she began thinking about joining a public board, having already served on the boards of several major nonprofits. Around that time, she began speaking with recruiters for Covidien, a medical-device and pharmaceutical company, who had contacted her because of her H.R. expertise, as well as her experience in merchandising and operations. After interviews with the five-member search committee, Herbert was offered a seat and became a board member last June. "It seemed like the perfect board for me," says Herbert, citing the chance to broaden her industry experience.