Doody

Can what be? That you're the biggest loser in the history of the world? Oh it can be

how is this still happening with firm pay structures being so highly publicized? it's incredible

Any chance they'll post an experience-adjusted metric? As in, how much do first year paralegals who are women make compared to first year paralegals who are men?

You may find that there are simply fewer women with 10 or 15 years experience (and commensurate salary) in the field, due to the decision many women make to dedicate their time to raising a family.

Lat? Help me Lat? I'm lost out in the wilderness with this Jimmy Carter you hired.

Let's have a rerun of ATL Idol, only this time without any of the previous competitors.

Or it screams of the fact that women take time off to have babies. When you take 3 months off one year, then do so again a couple years later, that is a large chunk of lost time. Plus sorry, but you can't tell me new moms work as long hours as they did before the baby. Does that account for the 51% number? Of course not - thats good old boy stuff at the partner level. But it sure as hell accounts for a 9% difference in paralegal pay.

women are just lazier, stupider, and shittier attorneys

Well done, Elie.

how is this still happening with firm pay structures being so highly publicized? it's incredible

how is this still happening with firm pay structures being so highly publicized? it's incredible

Farewell ATL, we barely knew ye.

Wow - so now elie is lifting posts from law.com ...

It's no wonder we have such a hard time getting Americans to acknowledge problems with race...they refuse to acknowledge discrimination between the sexes too. Stupid Americans.

well, if ladies were more willing to take it in the pooper than i would be willing to pay them almost as much as their male counterparts

-V10 partner

lara flynn boyle is hawt.

elie is not.

There ARE a couple obvious reasons for this that contribute to the disparity, but of course don't tell the whole tale:

1. Women work part-time more often than men. They do take more time off for child-rearing than men. That definitely alters the numbers.

2. Women have only entered the legal profession in great numbers, and broken through the barriers, in the last few decades. As a result, the bulk of them have not reached senior levels, have not had the time to go up through the ranks, not because they're women, but because they're simply younger. That ultimately contributes the gap as well.

women are just lazier, stupider, and shittier attorneys

DO WOMEN GET SCREWED WHEN IT COMES TO PAY AT DLA PIPER?

There ARE a couple obvious reasons for this that contribute to the disparity, but of course don't tell the whole tale:

1. Women work part-time more often than men. They do take more time off for child-rearing than men. That definitely alters the numbers.

2. Women have only entered the legal profession in great numbers, and broken through the barriers, in the last few decades. As a result, the bulk of them have not reached senior levels, have not had the time to go up through the ranks, not because they're women, but because they're simply younger. That ultimately contributes to the gap as well.

Women are secretaries, men are attorneys. Now please leave me alone as I club your mother into submission.

Tadge Choadley III

These studies are worthless unless they accurately adjust for credential, experience, types of positions, etc. And they rarely do, because the authors want an inflammatory headline.

"Given the proportion of females to males that work as paralegals, that income disparity screams of day-to-day sexism."

No, it absolutely doesn't. It screams of a significant reason for such disparity. To assume that is sexism is pointless. I'm as liberal as they come, and I don't buy any of this "the reason women make less is sexism" bullshit.

this isn't any "news" right? woman power? equality? nah. ain't happening :-)

Thanks, Elie, for posting on this important topic (and good on you for doing so with such good humor!).

Attention young female attorneys:

If you would wear the pair of shoes to a club that you are currently wearing in court, get some more conservative shoes.

Also, while I enjoy a fine pair of breasts as much as the next guy, they are distracting in court and its harder to take you seriously. The truth is we can't control looking, but you can control buttoning up.

Cheers, clerk.

Guys, leave Elie alone, she takes this issue very seriously. If you had been through what she had been, you'd understand that women like her really are discriminated against in the legal pay scales.

Aren't the highest paid lawyers in the judicial field generally the judges and magistrates? Aren't they usually in their 50s to 70s? Doesn't a gender gap more reflect sexism in law school admissions (and perhaps preferences among potential applicants) forty years ago, rather than sexism today?

I thought Elie was a dude?

-25

5 has a good point. Women who leave the profession do drag down the numbers, because that means that there are less senior women at every step but the same number of junior women, and law is generally a lockstep seniority pay scale.

26 was awesome.

25/28 - good job sherlock, you figured out the joke.

22 is absolutely right.

You can only do a fair comparison if you compare apples to apples. If female lawyers disproportionately leave before they are up for partner (which they do), then the failure to adjust for years of experience can account for most or all of the disparity.

But why do females leave before they make partner more often than men? Evil firms with unfriendly family leave policies?

No. Same reason a dogs licks their balls: because they can.

Being a lawyer sucks. Being a lawyer in a big firm sucks on stilts. Women can leave and spend all their time taking care of kids - an infinitely more rewarding and enjoyable job than lawyering - without any kind of social ostracization. Men could also be stay-at-home dads, but few of them are willing to bear the social stigma that comes with a man doing that.

Women have an easier, more socially acceptable way out of this nightmare that is being a lawyer. Is it any surprise that they take it?

I second the call for an update as to whether the survey results were properly adjusted. If they weren't, Elie, than your stupid fucking blind assumptions are what is embarrassing. THAT IS ALL.

27-HA! judges and magistrates are among the lowest paid members of the legal community. Big firm partner make the money, judges make government money...which is bad. The point may still be valid for partners, though the time scale should be much more compressed.

Goodbye, ATL.

Welcome, pulpit for left-wing victimhood.

Something is wrong with my internets. I typed in www.abovethelaw.com, but was mistakenly directed to the Cosmo site. I'll have my sec look into this. It'll be a good opportunity to chase her around the desk and slap her ass.

Ellie has been through enough. She fought her way through HLS and now has a tough job at ATL. Leave her alone.

Kash Kash

Couple of points.

As to seniority, its been my experience that men get promoted to partner more often because other (male) partners feel more comfortable taking men with them to client functions. Thus, the associate men learn the client promotion skills faster/better than women. At least in my firm, me (and a couple other women) were always overlooked in favor of the male associates when it came time to client schmoozing, which led to the men getting partnership nods and us women being told "sorry its not the 'right fit'".

Second, when it comes to salary negotiating (for laterals at least), women are told more often "our salary offer is X, take it or leave it" and that no negotiation is possible, but then men end up with higher salaries because "they negotiated for it." This happened to a friend of mine, who made enough of a stink over it, that her firm offered her "a package w/release" to leave.

I have worked in three mid-sized firms (no pay structure, 20-50 attorneys) and in each one there were several female attorneys with young children that worked fewer hours than most. Not part-time, just fewer hours. They left between 3-5, we stayed at work until 7ish. I suspect this is one way to explain this.

Also, the stats are totally worthless. You need to account for different positions, years of experience, hours worked, etc etc. I'm willing to bet when you account for all this you'll find far less disparity.

5 & 29 - exactly. The number does reflect a problem, but you need to interpret it the right way.

Now we're comparing the median and the average, so if a smaller proportion of female hold senior positions, this will bring down both the average and the median, even if both sexes are paid the same on all experience levels.

This is still a serious problem, but the causes might now be different.

38 - you and your friend both sound like you are fat. Is that correct? I wouldn't take some fat heifer with me to meet clients either.

38: Was that package with "full" release?

32 - fuck that shit. I would much rather let my gf (probably future wife) go to work and become partner while I stay at home, watch the kids, watch television, and socialize with MILFs during play group.

I particularly love the indignant closer, Elie. Were you seething with rage as you typed? Perhaps if you thought a bit longer before posting this, you would realized the shortcomings of the statistics (as others have above). Maybe not. But now, you've inspired hundreds of my fellow unthinking female law students to carp about how sexist the profession is. Thanks for that.

okay, lat, this isnt going to work out.

we come to ATL to be amused by irreverent law-related gossip, not to be talked down to by some proto-obamaton wannabe.

get rid of this guy, asap.

32 - nice comment. Salient, appropriate, well-written and humorous. Any interest in taking over this now-crappy blog?

I won't deny that there is sexism in law firms, but unless you adjust the numbers for experience, you aren't proving a thing.

32 is also right. Lawyers have the highest job dissatisfaction rates of any profession. It's no wonder women frequently leave.

you're dumb. women leaving the profession to have babies does matter, because it means that overall, there's more men in the advance stages (read:partner) that are making more money. So, it looks something like this:

first year associates: 100 male, 100 female
5th year associates: 100 male, 50 female
partners: 100 male, 25 female

When you take the median male's salary, it's somewhere in the middle of the entire profession. when you take the median female's salary, it's weighted more toward the junior level since there's LESS senior female lawyers.

nothing sexist about it, it's just math. you lose.

systematic: of, relating to, or being a system; carried out using a planned, ordered procedure; methodical, regular and orderly; of, or relating to taxonomic classification

systemic: relating to a system; pertaining to an entire organism

Read. Think. React.

Too many people leave out phase two and go directly to "profit."

I want more Kashmir. Bring on Kash Kash. I don't like her ugly younger sister Smelly Elie Mystal.

Salary and bonuses are not lockstep at every biglaw firm, let alone every firm. I'm assuming the Census doesn't only include the salaries of attorneys at the V20 firms.

I am a woman and I think this post is stupid. There are a lot of reasons that women earn less that have very little to do with sexism.

Also, they put this type of article in women's magazines twice a year. If ATL is using that trash as an inspiration for its stories, then I am truly looking forward to "187 ways to please your man," "does my boss have a crush on me -- take the quiz to find out," and "754 ways to look hot in a pantsuit."

Vomit.

There are so many variables that are unaccounted for by that statistic. Honestly, post about something interesting or at least well researched.

female partners are CRAZY

- female associate

IS THIS REALLY A FEMINIST SITE? DO YOU WANT TO GET PAID MORE? QUIT MAKING GRAMMATICAL ERRORS

So Elie sucks at economic analysis too. This is news worthy?

Elie, the vast majority of attorneys in the US aren't on a $160K lockstep pay scale. See http://www.nalp.org/content/index.php?pid=618. Thus, those pay scales will obviously not "smooth out gender inequality when it comes to salaries." Epic reasoning fail.

But I guess I didn't see any typos in the first 3 paragraphs, so that's an improvement, right?

Elie, your comment about the women leaving the profession not affecting the income disparage is both logically and statistically incorrect. The fact that more women leave the profession to start families is exactly what is causing this discrepancy. The median value of a distribution is the middle value of the group (basic definition). Therefore, in order for a group to increase in median value you need to have more people on the higher valued end of the distribution. Because more women leave a group at a younger age it decreases the pool of females who can reach partner (or even senior associate/council) level and thus drive up the median.
Furthermore, "women who take a 'survival of the species' time-out and then come back to work should be penalized" is a loaded statement that does not capture all the issues involved. Many firms give several weeks for maternity leave. Some firms will even give additional maternity time at reduced pay; however, at some point firms need their employees to be present and if someone stays away for long enough they are going to have to fill the space with a new body. The problem with taking a break from the legal world to raise a family is that your legal skills are going to be rusty when you come back, essentially the shorter the break you take the smaller the impact. If you stay gone too long then that will impact your abilities.
I admit in a perfect world women would be able to have children and maintain a career. However, being able to have a child and maintain a career is not always possible and in some women’s cases not even wanted. The decision on how to raise a child should be made between the husband and wife. As old school as this sounds, it currently is more socially acceptable for the female in the pair to be the primary care giver to the child - this social stigma in society probably adds to the pay discrepancy as well. However, I would not jump to label people who make these types of decisions as sexist. Jumping to label the entire problem on sexism is poor judgment and some more critical thought should be done before hand.
One last thing, I'm sure true sexism does exist in the legal profession. However, I do not believe that the entire profession is sexist in general like this blog post seems to suggest. The sexism that exists is on the individual side of things. Sexism exists where male associates, partners, and clients say and act in crude ignorant ways. The truly sexist people are not so pervasive within the profession that they are affecting female salaries at all levels.

I think if Elie wasn't black and unattractive, there wouldn't be the harsh critism you guys lay on him. His biggest mistake was showing his face. He should have let his creds speak for him, and hid behind his double ivy pedigree. The racist, small minded, cowardly pricks on here love to be "tough guy typists." Elie's just as good as Lat, bar a couple spelling errors. Shut the f*ck up, get back under your practice group partners' desk, and get to work on your partnership prospects. Remember to cup the stones and swallow... asshats....

41 - good point. Elie is also a fat woman, so that would explain why she is so concerned about this issue.

Can we get some Census numbers that compare fat women to everyone else?

I am a woman and I think this post is stupid. There are a lot of reasons that women earn less that have very little to do with sexism.

Also, they put this type of article in women's magazines twice a year. If ATL is using that trash as an inspiration for its stories, then I am truly looking forward to "187 ways to please your man," "does my boss have a crush on me -- take the quiz to find out," and "754 ways to look hot in a pantsuit."

Vomit.

You won't believe this statistic: Women are INFINITY PERCENT more likely to get pregnant during sex!!! Men are INFINTITY PERCENT less likely to be forced into the burdens of child-bearing!!!! Where is the indignation!!!!???

Statistics need controls. "Your ignorance is embarrassing. That is all."

I think if Elie wasn't black and unattractive, there wouldn't be the harsh critism you guys lay on him. His biggest mistake was showing his face. He should have let his creds speak for him, and hid behind his double ivy pedigree. The racist, small minded, cowardly pricks on here love to be "tough guy typists." Elie's just as good as Lat, bar a couple spelling errors. Shut the f*ck up, get back under your practice group partners' desk, and get to work on your partnership prospects. Remember to cup the stones and swallow... asshats....

Ah, c'mon...really? You guys don't think the Ole Boys Club is very much alive and kicking? I'm not one to hang my hat on it as the sole reason for the disparity, but totally ignoring it as if it doesn't exist is just willfully ignorant.

I work in M&A and on the rare occasion I get pegged for an all-hands meeting, I guarantee you it will only be me and 1 or 2 other women in the room with 20-30+ guys. Pure coincidence? Surely not. In the associate ranks, we may be 35-40%, but in the partner ranks were less than 10%. Once again, purely coincidence?

And sure there are inherent structural differences, both in the legal profession and American Big Business in general, given the fact that we've got the uteri, but that doesn't mean that the Ole Boys Club isn't very much alive and kicking.

It's just a shame that the US is so short-sighted as a society to make families (and by that I mean both the mothers and fathers) such a lower priority than the dollar. And we wonder why so many longterm problems emerge as a result. As much as it pains me to say it, I think many of our European counterparts have a better hold on this. We don't need to be as extreme as they are, but surely we don't need to be as extreme as we are either. We reap what we sow.

There are so many variables that are unaccounted for by that statistic. Honestly, post about something interesting or at least well researched.

Salary and bonuses are not lockstep at every biglaw firm, let alone every firm. I'm assuming the Census doesn't only include the salaries of attorneys at the V20 firms.

38, maybe you get passed over for partner because of your total lack of skill when using the english language. If you take out your obviously unnecessary parenthetical and changed the tense, your sentence reads: "At least in my firm, me [was} always overlooked in...." Me hopes that ur husband iz gud at hiz gob.

you are embarassing. this blog sucks since you've taken it over.

Its pretty clear that the numbers do not adjust for experience. Just look at the 64% disparity among "judicial workers" which includes judges and magistrates.

Judges salaries are almost always set by statute and constant for all judges in the same level. So there would be 0 disparity between male and female judges or magistrates in the same court.

The disparity, therefore, must come from the fact that their are more male judges and more female staffers. Judges make more than staffers, and there you go.

No you may complain that its sexist that there are more male judges. But this is an entirely different issue than pay disparity.

Elie - for you to have done an entire rant without bother to do the simple little analysis I have done indicates that you are intellectually lazy.

The fact that pay equity just happens to be an Obama talking point this week shows that you are a partisan hack.

Hey Elie, suck it smooth!

Regards,

Bo Jackson aka Moosecock Jones

You won't believe this statistic: Women are INFINITY PERCENT more likely to get pregnant during sex!!! Men are INFINTITY PERCENT less likely to be forced into the burdens of child-bearing!!!! Where is the indignation!!!!???

Statistics need controls. "Your ignorance is embarrassing. That is all."

42 - I'm not sure, but I suspect it probably was. She only took the package because she needed the money, she had a mortgage and *surprise* student loans to pay off, plus she felt that if she sued, her legal career would be over and she didn't have a husband's income to fall back on.

I had signed a similar release when my firm let me go over the not making partner bit, but I didn't fully realize the implications at the time (besides the whole needed money dealie) Neither my friend nor I were making "biglaw" salaries. though we made decent incomes, it wasn't enough to have a big enough savings account to risk 6+ months of unemployment.

Fortunately for both of us, we found good jobs, not paying quite as much as before, but better environments. But isn't that part of the problem? Environments that cater to women's mindset and lifestyle better tend to pay less.

41 - not fat, but yeah not exactly a size 0 either. :p My current boss takes me on client promotions just fine. but there are some firms where the 'good ole boy' network still flourishes with abandon.

I'm sure my politics are closer to Elie's than Lat's (he of the Federalist Society), but the indignant PC tone is *unbearable.*

The only apples-to-apples comparison here (paralegals) shows a 7% difference in pay, and that's on an annual salary basis (not, e.g., pay per hour worked).

Fine, let's not pat ourselves on the back re the status of women in the legal field. But the righteous indignation, which is misplaced on ATL anyway, seems completely unjustified.

Lat -- Please act now before the house that you built is ruined forevor. There is no hope that this is going to get better. That is all.

64 - you're right, Elie is unattractive. thanks for your post.

" I think many of our European counterparts have a better hold on this. "

If you think being a woman professional is tough in America, you should try being one in Europe.

#60/64:

If we're all so bigoted and racist, then why didn't we bash Lat all the time? He isn't one of us Caucasians.

Oh, I remember why. He was a good writer who posted entertaining stories. Elie does neither.

Ah, the fruits of that wonderful affirmative action tree...

The only thing that's embarrassing is your analysis and hyperbole, Elie.

"Women who have left the profession to start a family are not artificially dragging down the salary numbers, since they are "out" of the profession."

This is wrong. Lawyers who've been practicing longer (i.e. partners) tend to make much more money than those that have been practicing for just a few years (i.e. associates). If women leave early to start families, the high income they could have earned as a partner doesnt contribute to women's salary figures. Thus, the women's figures are lower. They are "out" of the profession, and the higher salaries they would have earned had they stayed in arent factored into the numbers.

Half the other girls I go to school with are in law school (and will later be in the law profession) to meet husbands. Just as there are a lot of idiot sexist men, there are a lot of stupid girls who think being a lawyer is going to be like watching legally blonde. Once those girls find their husbands, start having babies, or realize they won't be writing briefs on pink stationary and dotting their "i"s with hearts, they stop making lawyer $$. Women are so quick to blame everything on sexism, when sometimes the problem is the set of values they bring to the table.

- a girl

MY MOM WORKS AT DLA PIPER. SHE MAKES 227,000K A YEAR.

"Women Getting Screwed When It Comes To Pay"

I find the title of this posting offensive. I am calling for Elie's immediate resignation due to this blatant sexism.

Guys in my high school used to draw flawed conclusions from overly general census data all the time. It was no big deal.

I used to complain about too many posts concerning gifts to summer associates . . . those were the days . . . .

Does experience and part-time work and child-rearing account for the large disparity in paralegal salaries between men and women? I doubt it, given that there are a lot more female experienced paralegals than male ones. I wouldn't be surprised if if female attorneys faced the same income disparity outside of the lockstep biglaw firms.

"Some people will no doubt say something like "women are secretaries and men are attorneys," before clubbing their mates into submission."

This was meant to be a funny comment, but it makes no sense. It should probably read: "Some people will no doubt say something like 'women are secretaries and men are attorneys,' before being clubbed by their mates into submission.

Elie's attempt at making the joke PC by obfuscating the speaker and clubber's gender caused him to fuck it up.

Quit being PC and try harder to be funny.

#60/64:

If we're all so bigoted and racist, then why didn't we bash Lat all the time? He isn't one of us Caucasians.

Oh, I remember why. He was a good writer who posted entertaining stories. Elie does neither.

Ah, the fruits of that wonderful affirmative action tree...

God I hate affirmative action.

Love,

The Daughters of Xenu

go to law.com for a better piece on it.

81s mom makes 227 million dollars a year, according to his post.

At least it's encouraging to see that most of the commentors are reasonably intelligent and thoughtful individuals.

Me (and a couple people me work with) are very proud of you.

39-

As a working mother on the partnership track at a midsize (200 lawyer) firm, I can tell you that if I'm leaving at 5:00, it's because I billed an hour before I got the kids out of bed and will bill another couple after I tuck them in. Most of the lawyer moms I know, if they are partners or on partnership track, work the same hours, just on a different schedule.

Elie, you fail at simple analysis and basic reasoning. Fewer women in the senior ranks means lower average pay for women in a profession that relies heavily on lockstep systems. This is also the reason why female teachers make less than male ones.

Why don't you do a shocking expose on how older lawyers make more money than younger lawyers, which obviously means age discrimination is going on.

I can only guess at how low your score on the LSAT analytical section must be, and how of an much affirmative action boost you got from Harvard law.

86, huh? It doesn't make sense to me that way either. "Some [men] will no doubt say something like 'women are secretaries and men are attorneys,' before being clubbed by their [female] mates into submission." The type of men that say things like that aren't the types of men that are with women who would beat them into submission, they're usually pompous old boys types with dumb trophy girlfriends.

92- Stay home and raise your kids and make my dinner, mm'kay?

Cee Uou Next Tuesday

Does anyone really believe that firms are paying women less than they are paying men in the same position and all other merit issues being equal?

75 - couldn't have said it better myself. elie could ruin in months the empire Lat built. This is just plain awful, like so many posts of late. When will it stop????

Gallion

92 - "MOST of the lawyer moms I know, IF they are partners or on partnership track, work the same hours."

So what you are really saying is that SOME of the lawyer moms you know, even some of those who are partners or on the partner track, work less hours. Thanks.

The thing that kills me here is how many people blast Elie for the obvious misstep in his analyis that less female senior attorneys = less overall pay for women, but don't pause for a moment to take their analysis a step further. Is it purely a time issue (i.e. women haven't really broken into the legal system until recently and another 20 years and the partner disparities will be gone and sexism really is just a red herring) or are there are other factors (i.e. system set up that discourages women gaining seniority/partnership as they often have to sacrifice family for career at a much higher level than their male counterparts do---it's definitely easier being a partner and a father than it is being a partner and a mother)? I imagine it's a little bit of both, though which is the greater factor is up for debate.

This is a really important issue and Elie's post was appropriate and well put. Cheers to # 60 for calling out the infantile vicious criticisms for what they are. That much vitriol over typos shows their underlying sentiments are skewed and potentially hateful. Moreover, it should be possible to address and show concern for gender disparities without O'Reilly-esque uninformative political raving. Well done Elie.

If my firm could lower its salary costs by something close to 49% by hiring all women, it would. So would any logical firm and the firms that didn't do so would not be able to compete on price. The all women firms would be put the coed firms out of business. Since this is not happenning, then firms can't actually hire women at a cheaper price than equally qualified men.

96, yes, and it's because some firms bill women out at a lower rate.

This is a really important issue and Elie's post was appropriate and well put. Cheers to # 60 for calling out the infantile vicious criticisms for what they are. That much vitriol over typos shows their underlying sentiments are skewed and potentially hateful. Moreover, it should be possible to address and show concern for gender disparities without O'Reilly-esque uninformative political raving. Well done Elie.

I like how this thread, which mostly consists of lawyers pissed about a post suggesting that there is sexism in the legal profession, is full of lawyers making sexist jokes while insisting that there is no sexism in the legal profession. It's so meta it makes me dizzy.

65 -

I agree, there is some sexism in big law firms. However, Elie's post does nothing to prove that. The statistics he cites only establish that women make less on average, while doing nothing to account for the types of jobs or amount of experience women have.

And, contrary to Elie's flat out falsehood, the fact that women are more likely to leave to raise children has a huge impact on these numbers.

I don't think people here are denying that sexism exists sometimes, but we are concerned with the lack of analysis that went into Elie's post.

Boooooo .... who cares about women .... what about boni being slashed at Squire Sanders?

Cheers to #60 for calling out criticisms by playing the race card? So any criticism of a person who happens to be black is due to racism?

Is that you, Kwame Kilpatrick? I thought they didn't allow Internet access in jails.

96: Yes. I work at a small firm and somebody accidentally left out a list of attorney salaries. A female lawyer with several years more experience was making the same as a guy five or six years out of law school. She's also the much better attorney. I'd imagine it's a lot more difficult to pull off that kind of thing in BIGLAW, where there's more transparency.

I told this woman what I discovered, in case you're wondering.

104, right on.

73: I think that "full release" thing was a sexual comment. See "Happy Ending"

youre all a bunch of idiots. with elie marching in the lead.

True, women are getting screwed when it comes to paid. But certain women are getting paid when it comes to screw.

True, women are getting screwed when it comes to paid. But certain women are getting paid when it comes to screw.

Women = GULC
Men=UPEN State

Elie,

For the reasons stated by 59, 48, and others, this post is embarrassingly stupid. Please shape up and don't let this knee-jerk bleeding heart shit happen again.

Thanks.

If the biggest discrepancy among any legal occupation comes with "judicial workers" and women earn 64 cents on the dollar compared to men there, and yet overall they only earn 51 cents on the dollar, how could that result from anything BUT a huge difference in the type of jobs which men and women are employed in?

Are you even trying?

Over/under on days until Elie quits or leaps out a window (which is effectively the same as quitting) as a result of the pure hate from commenters on every single post, even those he does not post? 20? I am shocked he has stayed this long, frankly.

Female associates are hot. Mostly. I love it when they fart.

Elie didn't make up the stats. They came from the law.com article which summarized the census report.

why the fuck am i reading some liberal feminist soapboxing on ATL. elie, take your tired shit and go home. no mas!

Elie is a poor replacement for Lat, and is obviously a partisan hack.

But knock off the affirmative action jokes. Its racist, and unmerrited. Elie may be a poor blog writer, but that doesn't mean he did poorly on his LSATs or that he didn't earn his way into HLS. The skills for writing good blog posts are distinct from the skills necessary to get good grades in college and do well on the LSAT.

So by all means, bash Elie. These posts are absolutley terrible. But please lose the racist affirmative action jokes.

Elle, you're fucking retarded. e.g. "And the "women get pregnant and have babies while men toil away all the live long day" argument is a poor one. Women who have left the profession to start a family are not artificially dragging down the salary numbers, since they are "out" of the profession. And surely we don't think that women who take a "survival of the species" time-out and then come back to work should be penalized."

This "argument" you make ignores the simple concept that pay goes up with senority. If women drop out more frequently than men, it follows that the male work force will be on average more senior than the female work force.

Again, WAAAAAY to much insertion of your own opinion, Elie. ATL is supposed to be a snarky blog, not a judgmental opinion column.

121, consider 122's point and think about how high his LSAT score was considering his lack of basic logical reasoning ability.

It's true. I'm earning $160,000 my first year, but the girl next door is only earning $81,000.

...

Oh, wait, you mean, maybe if we compared people year-by-year, it might come out differently? No, let's stick with shock "stats."

"92 - "MOST of the lawyer moms I know, IF they are partners or on partnership track, work the same hours."

So what you are really saying is that SOME of the lawyer moms you know, even some of those who are partners or on the partner track, work less hours. Thanks."

Which is to say, in every category of lawyers (men, associates, parents, non-parents), there are those who pull their weight, and those who don't.

So, um, you're welcome.

-92

These stats are always terrible. The problem is that women make up much more of the lower paying paralegal and legal secretary positions, while men are more likely to be higher paid attorneys. So when all women's salaries are added together and compared to all men's salaries, women only make .51 cents on the dollar.

Sad, but true.

We don't even need to use affirmative action jokes... The dumb fat woman jokes are plenty.

Elie, you're a dumb fat woman. And we don't like what you're doing to ATL. Stop. Please.

"92 - "MOST of the lawyer moms I know, IF they are partners or on partnership track, work the same hours."

So what you are really saying is that SOME of the lawyer moms you know, even some of those who are partners or on the partner track, work less hours. Thanks."

Which is to say, in every category of lawyers (men, associates, parents, non-parents), there are those who pull their weight, and those who don't.

So, um, you're welcome.

-92

Affirmative action = full retard. You just never go full retard man. damn.

Tadge Choadley from "Tadge on Tadge"

99-
Your argument only makes sense if you assume that the purpose of a law firm is to carefully balance everyone's needs and pay them according to their value as a human being, not according to their financial value as a lawyer. In other words, you seem to think that law firms are supposed to be a Marxist paradise. They aren't.

This is all bullshit. I did my own study to prove it.

I talked to three female partners at Cravath, Wachtel, and Skadden, and averaged their salaries.

I then talked to three men who were 1Ls at Loyola, and averaged their salaries.

After comparing, I found that the men were making less than 5% of the salaries of the women.

Affirmative action has gotten out of hand, I tell you!

Obama pays his female staffers only 83 cents on the dollar to his male staffers.

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1118682&srvc=home&position=rated

127. You figured it out. You are very bright.
Sincerely,

127.

Hey 70,

You are falling into the same trap Elie made. I'll do a little exmaple...

How many Supreme Court justices are male? 8 female? 1

Now take a the appellate level - male? female?

Now go down each level of the judicial system...

See since the are more males higher up making more money they bring the median up and even if the ratio is 50/50 at the state drunk tank level... males median average will be higher.

Now go back into the kitchen and make me a chicken pot pie.

Let's see. A woman get pregnant and has the audacity to take a couple years off to be with her child. She now wants to re-enter the workforce. A major law firm has the option of hiring her (who has not been practicing for a couple years) or choose from about 100 Cadwalader attorneys who were just laid off. Assuming they are both qualified in the practice area, what is a logical thing for the firm to do? The problem is the huge supply of attorneys. If a man re-entered the legal field after taking a break, the same would apply. Why don't firms hire back returning mothers? for the same reason they don't hire attorneys from lesser schools - They don't have to. It's sad, but true.

Nice superficial analysis and indignant commentary, Elie. Are you going to take over Andrew Sullivan's blog next?

Women leave biglaw in greater numbers than men. First, they may go to less-intense, more-family friendly firms to work sane hours, but they also get paid less. Second, even if Ms. XX goes back to her V10 firm, she's six months or more behind her counterpart Mr. XY in experience, plus breaks off any relationships she's developed with partners or clients. I have every intention of bowing out when I have kids. I won't bitch about how I make less than the men I used to work with.

FIRST!

"I have every intention of bowing out when I have kids."

Are you bowing out of BIGLAW, or out of practicing law? It'd be extremely shortsighted to bow out of being a lawyer after having children simply because doing so makes partnership at a V10 firm elusive.

I didn't know Catherine McKinnon's retarded daughter wrote for ATL.

A lot of good factors have been contributed, but how about how many female versus male attorneys go into public interest law, which pays shit?

There is no great conspiracy.

Sorry to go off topic but is Davis Polk & Wardwell a life style firm?

wow. okay. i am a feminist and i believe in equal pay in a meritocracy and promotions unaffected by gender.

however, the writing in this post is so poor, the "facts" spouted are so unsupported, and the arguments are so thin and polemic that if this is what people think the "voice" of equal pay sounds like, we are in serious trouble.

lat, for all his good and bad, wrote much more like a journalist.

Save us Obi-Lat-Kenobi; You're our only hope.

"I like how this thread, which mostly consists of lawyers pissed about a post suggesting that there is sexism in the legal profession, is full of lawyers making sexist jokes while insisting that there is no sexism in the legal profession."

Amen 104.

Yeah, I'm sure that all these angry men would NEVER contribute to a hostile environment at work for women. Would NEVER award them smaller bonuses for absolutely no reason but their resentment of women. Would NEVER keep them from partnership due to their own insecurities. Good grief, calling women fat, lambasting any question/criticism of the pay disparity! What would your mothers/wives/daughters say if they knew you wrote this vitriol?

- Top 5 law grad, thin, female attorney who's smarter than you and a better lawyer than you.

If it makes Elie feel any better, I would never hire a man to be my paralegal. Men are my equals.

TINC

Ellie - are you really that dumb not to realize that these stats are meaningless unless controlled for experience level. Perhaps you could think about the content of the article before regurgitating it amid snarky comments.

138 = awesome!

144: Yeah, I'm sure that all these angry women would NEVER contribute to a hostile environment at work for men. Would NEVER award them smaller bonuses for absolutely no reason but their resentment of men. Would NEVER keep them from partnership due to their own insecurities. Good grief, calling men dumb, lambasting any question/criticism of the pay disparity! What would your fathers/husbands/sons say if they knew you wrote this vitriol?

- Top 4 law grad, thin, male attorney who's smarter than you and a better lawyer than you.

Maybe this is really just a grand ploy by elie to increase the number of comments. Say something general that will incite a large response and base it solely off of data that doesn't pinpoint your implication.

Someone should do a study of the average hours billed by female versus male associates at AMLAW 100 firms. I suspect it would be very interesting.

136, the woman who took years off brought that upon herself. If she wants to remain on the partnership track and be a competitive hire, maybe she should marry a husband who is willing to pitch in and help with the child-rearing, so that she doesn't have to take a "couple of years" off to raise kids.

Women should not blame business hiring practices when women conform to gender stereotypes and drop out of the labor force to pick up the child-raising slack for their husbands.

A "legal occupations" category that includes secretaries, paralegals, associates and partners is pretty much worthless for any analysis of possible sex discrimination in wages. Elie buried the lede:

"Women attorneys earned a median of $93,600, or about 78 percent of men's median earnings of $120,400. "

There's still a gap, but small enough that it could be due to differences in longevity, practice areas and full-time/part-time work. Only way to tell is by more sophisticated analysis than in the Census report. It's a shame that Elie went off half-cocked and jumped to unsupported conclusions. If ATL is going to address substantive legal issues, it should do so in a more serious manner.

I love how when these types of statistics are cited, the not-so-subtle message is that the pay gap is due to discrimination against women. If you examine the underlying basis of most of the pay disparity statistics, you'll find that women actually earn MORE than men. Women earning 78 cents for every dollar men make is a myth that has been disproven in numerous articles.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/02/AR2007040201262.html
From the article:
"When these kinds of differences are taken into account and the comparison is truly between men and women in equivalent roles, the wage gap shrinks. In his book "Why Men Earn More," Warren Farrell -- a former board member of the National Organization for Women in New York -- identifies more than three dozen professions in which women out-earn men (including engineering management, aerospace engineering, radiation therapy and speech-language pathology). Farrell seeks to empower women with this information. Discrimination certainly plays a role in some workplaces, but individual preferences are the real root of the wage gap.

When women realize that it isn't systemic bias but the choices they make that determine their earnings, they can make better-informed decisions. Many women may not want to follow the path toward higher pay -- which often requires more time on the road, more hours in the office or less comfortable and less interesting work -- but they're better off not feeling like victims."

I won't be coming to ATL much more often if it turns into a leftwing blog.

39 - Do you know what these women are doing after they leave at 5? Most of the working moms with whom I work leave around 5, but they put their kids to bed by 8 and work from 8 - midnight, only to get in earlier than the rest of us the next morning. What do you do when you get home aside from sit on the couch and surf the internet? Rough life.

I don't have kids, but I'm not even going to pretend that those with kids don't work harder at their job than the rest of us (remember, they have a family to support, so they feel pressure to perform that you and I don't).

BTW, we have some dads who leave around 5, too, but most people assume that they have a client meeting or are going to a MLB game. Nope - they have kid responsibilities.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/119920.html

June O'Neill, an economist at Baruch College and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, has uncovered something that debunks the discrimination thesis. Take out the effects of marriage and child-rearing, and the difference between the genders suddenly vanishes. "For men and women who never marry and never have children, there is no earnings gap."

144 - Do you swallow? If so, we may be a perfect match.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/04/magazines/fortune/muphy_payact.fortune/index.htm

The American Association of University Women favors the Fair Pay Act; even so, in its recent report, "Behind the Pay Gap," it concluded that, "after accounting for all factors known to affect wages, about one-quarter of the gap remains unexplained and may be attributed to discrimination." That comes out to about five percentage points.

To 144

If my mother/wife/daughter said ANYTHING that called into question my judgment, they would quickly find the back of my hand imprinted on their cheek.

Now back to the kitchen with you.

A-fucking men! thank you for writing this Elie.

come on people, we're lawyers. bring on the lawsuits!

Elie to 195k

I googled "Daily Kos" and it brought me here. Why?

"she needs to be told what to do... like most women" -- johnny bananas

If I decline to pretend that a woman (or man) who takes time off from work to raise a family is actually gaining legal experience while changing diapers, I am not "penalizing" the woman (or man). Rather, I am recognizing that the woman (or man) has chosen to accept lower compensation and slower advancement in exchange for....wait for it Elie, cause this is the hard part, the joys associated with having a family.

I've declined to join in the Elie bashing until now. That's because your a fat dude, and I've got a soft spot for fatties. No more. There are plenty, PLENTY of places on the web for regurgitated PC bullcrap. I come here for snarky gossip. So please, stop ruining this blog.

From a Partner: Let's be real. Who is more valuable, a male widget maker who makes me 1000 widgets a year, or a female widget maker who makes me only 750 widgets a year.? And if I don't know whether the female is going to be making me 1000 or 750, why should I be forced to pay said female as if they are worth someone who will make me 1000? Fairness? BS. Women should stay home where they belong. Or sterilize themselves and THEN I'll talk turkey. Just to make a point, tomorrow I'm going to give a few of our male associates a surprise bonus of 20k to 30k -- to offset all the PC crap that says men are not worth more than women.

39/92 - I used to work at a firm where I had to leave by 5 to get my kids, but worked later that night. Unfortunately, I had a boss that cared more about 'face time.' Didn't matter if I got my hours in, if I wasn't at his beck and call from 5pm to at least 7pm, I wasn't working hard enough. Certainly I was expected to bill as much as my peers, but I wasn't getting paid as much as them.

Has anyone considered a situation where a female lawyer mom may bill less than a full time budget but has BUSINESS? Let's no just talk about billing hours...what if you have a mom who has clients -- and others in the firm may be billing to those clients, not just the mom. I would say that mom is more valuable for her rainmaking than a male tooling widget maker. I would make her partner even if she wanted to work less than full time. Money talks, b-s walks. I am that woman. I walked when the firm wouldn't advance me. I found a firm that would allow me a reduced schedule and a partnership. Smart firms do creative things. Don't just tool away, ladies, develop your network, develop your business.

Has anyone considered a situation where a female lawyer mom may bill less than a full time budget but has BUSINESS? Let's no just talk about billing hours...what if you have a mom who has clients -- and others in the firm may be billing to those clients, not just the mom. I would say that mom is more valuable for her rainmaking than a male tooling widget maker. I would make her partner even if she wanted to work less than full time. Money talks, b-s walks. I am that woman. I walked when the firm wouldn't advance me. I found a firm that would allow me a reduced schedule and a partnership. Smart firms do creative things. Don't just tool away, ladies, develop your network, develop your business.

Not MY editor

160 is a fat contract lawyer with a small penis from Touro (top 90%) that has never seen a vagina in his life.

Hey 154-

Did you know that woman works for a fake women's rights organization? You shouldn't fall for her bullshit stats. Her organization also thinks that women belong in the kitchen. What an idiot.

There are law firms that hire women!? I thought that was strictly for the TTTs.

Paralegals should earn less than lawyers

Accord, 35 & 45. Seriously, Lat & Elie, this post was sexism-baiting garbage.

65, it's not a coincidence you're one of three women in a 30-person M&A meeting. Every female classmate of mine going into BigLaw was angling for some weak group like labor & employment, tax, or environmental. The really hard, transactional-minded ones went into public or project finance. None went into M&A. That's why there's no women in your meeting. Women don't like that stuff.

More than half of lawyers are self-employed, as partners or solo-practitioners. *** The reported income disparity is totally meaningless since most lawyers eat what they kill. Kill more, eat more. Kill less, make 51% of what a male makes.

Elie and the rest of the unthinking fems & dems on here are f-tards.

To 171

I saw one once. I then slapped my mom and told her to bust out the boob so I could suckle. Other than that, you are 100% correct. You should be a profiler, not a lawyer.

Bad to the Bone

Girls: Want make more money? Sleep with a Partner or your boss. Then threaten to file a sex harassment suit against him. Works every time!

What an utterly ridiculous and just plain wrong post. It's not politics that would have resulted in Lat seeing through the fundamentally flawed conclusion that is being drawn from these statistics, it's the fact that he has a fucking brain in his head.

Every one of you who unthinkingly agreed that this post was correct - that sexism is the only possible explanation for, and indeed was proven by, these numbers - is an idiot.

Also, let us not forget that these are from the US Census. The data is not really correlated to any meaningful data.

It is completely self-reported. How many douchebags do you think listed "paralegal" when they are in reality a clerk? How many males in category above overinflated their salary as a matter of course.

There are other ways to better judge this phenomenon. My experience with hiring/managing/firing virtually every type of non-attorney legal personnel is that

a.) women do NOT negotiate nearly as effectively as men. Respondents elsewhere to this story keep insisting shrilly that they do, but it just ain't so, sister.
and
b.) men lie their asses off about compensation. They round up, inflate their titles, etc. In my experience this happens much less often, and to much lesser of a degree among women.

For all the female associates whining about not being taken to meetings, client introductions and the like, you have no one to blame on that score but yourselves.

The modern workplace is so overcharged with hypersensitivity to sexual harrassment it's ridiculous.

To quote a founding partner when I asked why he had such an unattractive, mediocre secretary: "Why on earth would I want that distraction and danger everyday?"

Like it or not, a partner is gonna avoid the hassle altogether and simply invite male colleagues.

Whoops, there it is!

144 -- Usually when a female attorney starts getting all defensive and talking about how smart she is and what a good lawyer she is, it is soon after someone has handed her her ass in court. How much did your client lose cuz you forgot that lawyers prove their worth on the front lines and not in what cute dress they wore to that cute associate's party last weekend.

This post seems to mistakenly assume that the women who have babies drop out of the profession. Talk about sexist!!!

My wife had a kid, and I'm pretty sure it contributed to her firm not giving her the standard class-year raise the next year. (They were recouping the maternity leave pay I guess....) THAT'S why female lawyers make less, it's shit like that. It's a catch-22 though, because women going on maternity leave DO make women lawyers a huge extra cost for firms. Statistically, not enough men are going to go on disability for back injuries, etc., to counterbalance the cost of regular three-month paid maternity leaves. But it sucks anyway. The only fair answer of course is that men should have three month paternity leaves, too! But of course, there is so much machismo in the law, as evidenced by this blog, that men would never take their paternity leave, and any man who did would be mocked.

So then one can ask whether the maternity and paternity leaves should be mandatory; but then all the moose-gun-toting France-haters will scream, as perhaps they should. So frankly, there really is no good solution that I can see.

In one of the most capitalist nations in the world, you just discovered an easy way to have an extremely profitable law firm, hire only women, who are apparently equally qualified, but underpaid. Unless your data or assumptions are overlooking something...

Let us analyze the issue this way. The male employees are taking their annual six month paid paternity leave to play with their kids on the company's time. All the females are doing two jobs for the price of one and are screaming bloody murder. Since when was playning with yor kid on the company's time a job function?

Men archly reply that since men and children are the center of the universe what is good for men and children is good for everybody. Women exist to get shit on so that sacred men and children should always come first. Don't like your own logic, girls? Then get back in the kitchen and bedroom where you belong-and learn to think straight.

Several things amaze me about the comments on this blog:

1) How offensive most of the comments are. If this racist, sexist crap is coming from the supposedly most educated, and still employed members of the profession, god help us in this country!!!

2) Why do you all assume that every woman lawyer will marry and have babies? I have been in the profession for over 25 years, graduated from one of the top 2 law schools, and have seen a lot of talented, hard-working women lawyers who were better than their male counterparts, and who didn't leave to have babies, still get passed over for partnership. Similarly I have seen a lot of lazy, stupid male associates who sucked up to the partners get promoted.

3) All of you self-denying young female attorneys who want to claim that this study is NOT accurate, talk to me again in 15 years when you're not cute anymore, got laid off first in a RIF, got denied partnership, or make less money than male lawyers.

4) All you smug, young male lawyers -- wait until it happens to you -- or wait until they throw your ass out in the next recession. If you have time to post on this blog, you're obviously not working on client work, or are you billing your time to "legal education"?