Feminism

Who Likes Short Skirts? We Like… Better Economic Times

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skirt above the knee.jpgA few female readers have asked us to direct your attention to this poll at fashion and lifestyle blog Corporette:

How short of a skirt can a professional woman get away with?

According to the votes in so far, “professional women” can get away with skirts that stop just above the knee. Does the same apply to the legal profession? We’ll let you debate in the comments.

Meanwhile, we know that some of you would like every post under the sun to tie into the volcanic meltdown that is Wall Street. According to the “economic skirt theory,” women these days should be in skirts that brush the ground. Per a July article from the New York Times:

Although designers always dismiss the correlation between skirt lengths and financial markets as a fashion historian’s fantasy, the parallels are striking. Hemlines rose to dizzying heights in the financial and social whirl of the roaring 1920s — revealing women’s legs for one of the first times in recorded history. Then came the bear market and bare was out — except for low backs on the floor-length gowns that dropped hemlines just before the 1929 Wall Street crash.

Given the way things are going, maybe they’ll start designing woman’s skirt suits with trains?

Poll: How short is too short for a skirt? [Corporette]

Bulls, Bears and the Bellwether Hemline [New York Times]

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Women Getting Screwed When It Comes To Pay

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feamle attorneys make less than men.jpgThe U.S. Census Bureau reports that women in legal occupations earn 51% of what men earn.

That is not a typo.

Some people will no doubt say something like “women are secretaries and men are attorneys,” before clubbing their mates into submission. But according to the report:

[T]he salary gap was the largest among judges, magistrates and other judicial workers, with women earning an estimated $69,500, compared to men’s $108,100, or about 64 percent of their salaries.

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

We briefly mentioned yesterday that female paralegals only earn 93% of what their male counterparts make. Given the proportion of females to males that work as paralegals, that income disparity screams of day-to-day sexism.

These additional numbers may speak to larger systematic problems facing women in the legal profession. Lockstep pay should smooth out gender inequality when it comes to salaries, so long as women are getting promoted and making partner on par with their male counterparts. Clearly, this is not happening.

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.

78 cents on the dollar for female attorneys? 51 cents on the dollar for all females in the profession? Those numbers are embarrassing. That is all.

Women in Legal Occupations Earned 51 Percent of Men’s Salaries, Says Study [Law.com]

Summer Wives (Part 1 of 2)

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Hamptons mansion shingle style cottage.jpgMy friend Anna is a summer wife.
You see, her “summer” husband, Abraham, does what all high-powered law firm partners do each summer: he dispatches his wife to the summer home in the Hamptons or Shelter Island or Martha’s Vineyard.
This allows Biglaw partners to supper in the city with the single senior (or summer) associates. I mean, these guys can’t be alone at dinnertime. They have to supper with someone, so why not with an associate who is close by or, better yet, in the same office?
One night, after I meet Abraham, I ask him about his family in exile, and how he is adjusting to their absence from his day- to-day life. He says: “Well, it’s better for the kids to be out there in the summer…. They have the beach, their grandparents are there….”
Blah. Blah. Blah. We’re in the midst of a global warming crisis; we’re all supposed to be wearing SPF 45, even when just driving in our cars. Do the kids really need that much sun and sea? And is it really benefiting them if their father is absent from their lives most days of the week? Or is this arrangement really better for you, Abraham?
Read more, after the jump.

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Breaking: McCain Picks Palin Up Off the Street For Veep

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Sarah Palin Alaska Governor Sarah Palin hottie.jpgAccording to the New York Times, John McCain has tapped Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.
Appeal to disaffected Clinton voters? Trying to lock up the Mike Gravel fan base?
Update: Although Governor Palin is not a lawyer, there have already been several legal issues mentioned with regard to her candidacy. Just last month, her own state legislature opened an investigation into allegations that she tried to get her ex-brother-in-law fired from his state trooper job
Law professor Ann Althouse has already gone on record with a furry opinion about Palin’s credentials.
Without a professional legal background to pontificate on (compare Joe Biden), we here at ATL will continue to scour our sources to bring you the latest on Palin’s positions about the things that matter to lawyers, big and small. Anyone know her views on SCOTUS nominations?
McCain Chooses Palin as Running Mate [New York Times]
Alaska’s Palin Faces Probe [Wall Street Journal]

Naming a magazine for female attorneys: Chill out, Trial Mama?

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Magazines.jpgThe makers of KNOW: The Magazine for Paralegals have another legal publication in the works. A tipster forwarded us an e-mail about a “new magazine for women professionals in litigation.”
Imagining the love child of Glamour and the American Lawyer, we expected to see planned articles on hot courtroom studs and legal fashion faux pas. But it sounds like this publication will be more strait-laced. The email announcement claims the magazine will “be chock full of work style and life style balance articles; address women’s issues in the law firm and in-house legal environment and offer informative pieces on current topics in technology, litigation and e-discovery.”
They’re in the naming phase, and are considering the following. Which two are not like the others?

* Women in Litigation
* Chill
* Woman Litigator
* Trial Mama
* American Litigator
* Spirit, The Magazine for Women in e-Discovery
* Equality, The Magazine for Women Litigators
* Legal Women, A Workstyle & Life Balance Magazine

We’re not excited by the bland “Women in Litigation” options, or anything with “e-Discovery” in the title. But “Chill” and “Trial Mama” are truly ridonculous. ATL Idol Exley’s “Clitigator”, or Lat’s beloved “Litigatrix”, would blow all the other entries away. We welcome better title suggestions in the comments.
Among the options offered, we can’t decide which is the worst. What do you think?


Earlier: We Don’t KNOW How This Magazine for Paralegals Will Do

A Woman’s Place Is… At Cravath

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Deborah Epstein Henry.JPGThis week, Working Mother magazine, in association with Flex-Time Lawyers, released its second annual Best Law Firms for Women rankings.
Some of the firms on this year’s list are notorious sweatshops, more likely to help women freeze their eggs than they are to aid either sex in raising a family.
I contacted Deborah Epstein Henry (pictured), founder and president of Flex-Time Lawyers and co-author of the list. Henry said that her results reflect more than firm PR. The rankings score firm programs based on how many attorneys actually use those programs.
In Henry’s view, ranking the best law firms for women is more than just a women’s issue.
“What we are looking for is firms that have work/life policies that are both gender- and racial [sic] reason-neutral,” Henry said. “I firmly believe that the more we can move work/life issues away from being a ‘mommy’s issue’ the better off we’ll be.”
More on Henry’s efforts to make law firms responsive to lifestyle concerns after the jump.

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Farewell, Ally McBeal; Enter the Litigatrix

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Tilda Swinton Karen Crowder Ally McBeal Calista Flockhart.jpgThat’s the title of our latest column for the New York Observer, which reflects upon recent television and film portrayals of women litigators.
It touches upon some of the same themes highlighted in Amy Kolz’s excellent American Lawyer article from last year, but it’s more focused on fictional female litigators, as opposed to real-life ones. Here’s how it starts:

Whatever happened to Ally McBeal? If recent movies and television shows are any guide, the life of a female lawyer has gotten a lot less pleasant since the carefree, charmingly neurotic days of dancing babies and bathroom kisses. But today’s portrayals may be more accurate, and certainly more critically acclaimed.

Last January, Glenn Close won a Golden Globe for her compelling performance as Patty Hewes, a fearsome and wildly successful plaintiff’s lawyer, on the addictive TV show Damages. The following month, Tilda Swinton snagged an Oscar for stepping into the pumps of Karen Crowder, a hard-charging in-house litigator, in Michael Clayton.

In March, Julianna Margulies (of ER) returned to television as aggressive defense lawyer Elizabeth Canterbury, the title character of Canterbury’s Law. Even Katey Sagal, who embodied the famously vulgar Peggy Bundy on Married With Children, reincarnated herself this year as Marci Klein, the sleek, powerful, and ruthless founding partner of the law firm on Eli Stone.

You can read the full column over here.
Farewell, Ally McBeal; Enter the Litigatrix [New York Observer]

Boring but Important: New Law Firm Partners Mostly Dudes

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533590_boy_meets_girl.jpgLadies, if you want to make partner, consider Dorsey & Whitney. The Project for Attorney Retention has just released a report (PDF) on the number of women among this year’s new partners at 77 firms.
Props to Dorsey & Whitney and Ropes and Gray. Here’s why:

At a dozen firms, 50% or more of the new partners were women: Dorsey & Whitney (10 of 15 new partners are female, for 71%), Ropes & Gray (7 of 10 new partners are female, for 70%), Simpson Thacher & Bartlett (4 of 6 new partners are female, for 67%), Blackwell Sanders (8 of 12 new partners are female, for 67%), Cravath, Swaine & Moore (2 of 3 new partners are female, for 67%), Crowell & Moring (4 of 7 new partners are female, for 57%), DLA Piper (15 of 28 new partners are female, for 54%), Reed Smith (14 of 26 new partners are female, for 54%), Arnold & Porter (2 of 4 new partners are female, for 50%), Cadwalader (1 of 2 new partners is female, for 50%), Shearman & Sterling (3 of 6 new partners are female, for 50%), and Womble Carlyle (4 of 8 new partners are female, for 50%).

Women made up less than half of the new partners at the other 65 firms surveyed.
Some firms are in serious gender equality hot water. Here’s the list of shame:

Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein did not make a single female partner (0 of 8 new partners were female). For others, only one or two women lawyers were awarded the brass ring: Orrick (1 of 13 new partners is female, for 8%), Proskauer Rose (1 of 11 new partners is female, for 9%), Nixon Peabody (1 of 11 new partners is female, for 9%), Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman (1 of 11 new partners is female, for 9%), Baker & Daniels (1 of 9 new partners is female, for 11%), Vinson & Elkins (1 of 9 new partners is female, for 11%), Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge (1 of 9 new partners is female), Akin Gump (2 of 15 new partners are female, for 13%), Milbank (1 of 8 new partners is female, for 13%), White & Case (1 of 7 new partners is female, for 14%), and Gibson Dunn (2 of 13 new partners are female, for 15%).

Three firms have had nearly all-dude partner classes for four years running: Akin Gump, Fried Frank, and Vinson & Elkins. For those of you flirting with a career move from lawyering to screenplay-writing, think: Charlize Theron fighting her way to partnership at Fried Frank, à la North Country.
Law Firms’ New Partners Still Mostly Male: New Partner Classes 2005-2008 [Project for Attorney Retention]

Time for Winston Women To Go Burqa Shopping?

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Ally McBeal Calista Flockhart micromini skirt miniskirt Above the Law blog.jpgAlthough many tipsters emailed us about it, we never wrote about this buzz-generating Wall Street Journal article, reporting on how many older lawyers are displeased by the overly informal, even sloppy attire of their younger colleagues. We didn’t write about it earlier because we felt preempted: the piece received lots of online attention, from such widely read outlets as the ABA Journal and the WSJ Law Blog, where it generated heavy comment traffic.
But now we have a new angle on it. Focus on these portions of Christina Binkley’s WSJ article:

[Winston & Strawn D.C. managing partner Thomas Mills] says he is partial to well-fitted Brioni suits for himself. He notes that the going rate for new associates in New York, Los Angeles and Washington is $160,000 a year — enough to buy suits while paying down school loans. Yet all too often, associates show up at work in jeans — attire that he doesn’t condone “unless it’s moving day.”

Winston & Strawn brought in a personal shopper from a local department store last year to address associates on how to shop and dress for work. Mr. Mills says that when some associates do make an effort to dress up, they seem to base their look on Hollywood. “You get the TV-woman lawyer look with skirts 12 inches above the knee and very tight blouses,” he says. “They have trouble sitting and getting into taxis.”

burka burqa burkha burqha.jpgThese remarks apparently didn’t go over too well back at Winston:

W&S DC office’s managing partner comes off as a total a**. His comments re: his custom suits are one thing. But his comments re: the way women in the office dress have created a stir….

People are seriously pissed, particularly the women. Man comes off as a total pig…. Read the article, you’ll see why.

This is prime ATL material. Firm has called impromptu associates meeting for 9:30 Monday, no topic given. But the guess is it is damage control.

The guess was correct. More about the meeting, after the jump.

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Heller Ehrman (Los Angeles) Has a Diva-licious New Leader

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Nancy Cohen Nancy Sher Cohen diva Heller Ehrman Above the Law blog.jpgSome of our prior coverage of Heller Ehrman has been a bit gloomy. We take it all back. Now that the firm’s Los Angeles office is under a magnificent new leader — Nancy Sher Cohen, whom we have previously praised in these pages — we see nothing but good things ahead.
Legal Pad conducts a very interesting interview with Nancy Cohen. Here’s an excerpt:

Legal Pad: How do you feel about “Above the Law” blog calling you “divalicious”?

Cohen: I found out about it from several associate who came to show it to me. Isn’t that funny? I just looked at it and howled. There is a lesson there. You just never know who is going to be writing about you, thinking about you, making comments about you. It’s a reminder that you should always do your best and always be sensitive and nice, civil.

We’re confused. Does Ms. Cohen think that we were speaking negatively of her? To the contrary, we had only good things to say. From our prior post:

When we were in private practice, our experiences with Heller Ehrman were quite positive. We attended several depositions defended by the diva-licious Nancy Sher Cohen, who protected her witnesses like a lioness protecting her cubs. We were most impressed by this badass litigatrix (who is also a community activist and cancer survivor; see this profile).

As for the “diva-licious” quip, let the record reflect that the term “diva” is ATL’s highest form of praise. Longtime readers are well aware of our obsession with strong-willed women — especially women who have managed to achieve tremendous success in a traditionally male-dominated field like law.
This is why we are such fans of Senatrix Hillary Clinton, who is a tough, smart, fearless leader. We have no clue why some of you seem to think we don’t like her. We think Senator Clinton is fabulous.
Why do you think we’ve snapped up so many domain names related to her? Visit HillaryClintonIsMyGirl.com, HillaryIsMyGirl.com, Hillarylicious.com, HillaryIsSexy.com, HillarySexy.com, or HillarySex.com. Where do you get redirected to?
‘Badass Diva’ Ready to Run Heller in L.A. [Legal Pad /CalLaw]
Earlier: Going to Heller in a Handbasket? (Part 2)

If Wanda Sykes Were a Biglaw Associate…

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She probably wouldn’t be very happy with her law firm. From the Minority Law Journal:

[N]owadays most associates don’t plan on spending their entire legal career at one law firm. But some associates are more likely to head for the exits than others. Nearly half of all white male midlevel associates say that they expect to be working at their current firm in five years, according to our Minority Experience Study. Just over 40 percent of minority male midlevels said the same. Of the minority female midlevels, though, fewer than a third planned to stay put.

Minority women seem to have more reason to want to leave big firms, according to our findings. [The study] showed women of color experiencing less satisfaction and more obstacles at large firms than their peers, including men of color.

You can read the full article — replete with numerous quotes from “diversity advisers, “diversity consultants” and “diversity officers” — over here.
Janice Rogers Brown Above the Law Wanda Sykes.JPGP.S. Yes, the Wanda Sykes reference is pretty random. We just think that she is hilarious, and we try to mention her at every opportunity. We also think she bears an uncanny resemblance to one of our favorite jurists, Judge Janice Rogers Brown (D.C. Cir.; see photo at right).
P.P.S. And have you seen — or rather, heard — Wanda Sykes in the new Applebee’s ads? The restaurant chain has hired her to serve as the voice for their new “spokesapple.” Genius.
Why Are Minority Female Associates Leaving Law Firms? [Minority Law Journal]

A Sexist Screed Against Female Attorneys?

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We are not easily offended, nor are we very politically correct. Sometimes we write things that upset or antagonize people (sometimes intentionally, and sometimes not).
But this discussion of women lawyers, while certainly provocative, is a bit too inflammatory for our taste. We won’t post excerpts here (because finding a portion that isn’t offensive is difficult).
It’s generating discussion and making the rounds by email, however, and people have brought it to our attention. We’re passing it along for your consideration, so you can see what all the fuss is about. But please keep in mind that we agree with Jeff Jarvis’s linking philosophy: “A link is not necessarily an endorsement, but a way to say ‘you go judge for yourself.’”
What A Girl’s Job Tells You [Roissy in DC]