Conservative Partners Give Female Associates Smaller Bonuses
This is really disheartening.
For all of the talk those in Biglaw leadership dedicate to their commitment to promoting women in the practice of law, the results of a new study come as a slap in the face to those associates who believed their firms were attempting to close the gender wage gap.
According to the results of a study conducted by Forrest Briscoe and Aparna Joshi of Penn State’s Smeal College of Business, law firm partners’ political ideologies influence how they allocate bonus income to female associates — and it doesn’t matter if those partners are male or female. Their research covered about 360 associates and their supervising partners at a large law firm of more than 1,000 lawyers by headcount over the course of a six-year period.
This what they learned, courtesy of the Harvard Business Review:
The Business Case For AI At Your Law Firm
Our findings revealed a gender gap in bonuses given to men and women that was minimal for partners at the liberal end of the ideological spectrum but much larger at the conservative end. Under the most conservative managers (those who only donated to Republican campaigns), men received nearly $5,000 more, on average, in annual bonuses than women. Importantly, these findings could not be explained away by differences in associates’ backgrounds or work efforts, including their billable hours.
Perhaps even more alarming is the fact that the difference in bonus payment amounts grew larger among more experienced female associates. This is disheartening:
This effect was even greater for law firm associates who had more seniority and worked for conservative partners. Under the most conservative managers, experienced men received over $15,000 more in annual bonuses, on average, than comparably experienced women.
What, if anything, is to be done about this problem? Briscoe and Joshi suggest that law firms must address such pay inequality by “increasing transparency on reward and promotion decisions for men and women.” As that seems far from likely to occur, Vivia Chen of The Careerist wonders, “Will any of this be achieved in the Trump era, when indications are that it’s the retro macho ideal that is celebrated?”
Sponsored
Navigating Financial Success by Avoiding Common Pitfalls and Maximizing Firm Performance
The Business Case For AI At Your Law Firm
Legal AI: 3 Steps Law Firms Should Take Now
Legal AI: 3 Steps Law Firms Should Take Now
At this point, we can only hope to keep the dream of gender equality in law firms alive.
Do Conservative Managers Give Smaller Bonuses to Women?
[Harvard Business Review]
It’s True: Republican Partners Give Female Associates Smaller Bonuses
[The Careerist / Am Law Daily]
Staci Zaretsky is an editor at Above the Law. She’d love to hear from you, so feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
Sponsored
Is The Future Of Law Distributed? Lessons From The Tech Adoption Curve
Early Adopters Of Legal AI Gaining Competitive Edge In Marketplace
