Public Interest, Women's Issues

7 Tips On How Women Can Dominate Their Chosen Legal Field, By Civil Rights Attorney Maya Wiley

Career advice and insights from the noted civil-rights lawyer and activist.

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Maya Wiley (via Wikimedia)

Maya Wiley (via Wikimedia)

“I practiced the law, I practic’ly perfected it / I’ve seen injustice in the world and I’ve corrected it / Now for a strong central democracy / If not, then I’ll be Socrates / Throwing verbal rocks at these mediocrities” — Lin–Manuel Miranda, “Non-Stop,” Hamilton

Last week, New York Magazine featured attorney Maya Wiley in its piece for The Cut, titled Civil Rights Attorney Maya Wiley on How to Keep Fighting the Good Fight. The Cut’s Dayna Evans met with Wiley at her office to discuss “what inspired her to get into public service in the first place, whether progress is actually possible in such a divisive time in history, and why it’s so essential we see more women in office.”

Evans took down seven pieces of professional advice that Wiley gave for women who seek careers in public service:

  1. Find your cause early — and stick with it.
  2. Set clear expectations for your future goals, and if you don’t meet them, move on to something else.
  3. Being a multi-disciplinarian and having a varied career can only help you in the future.
  4. Don’t always presume the most obvious answer is the correct one.
  5. As hard as it may be, you have to respect people with different perspectives (even if they’re wrong; [especially if they’re wrong]).
  6. Women, more than ever, need to show up to jobs in public office.
  7. If you’re in management, saying that there are no qualified women to hire is a cop-out.

Wiley’s advice was geared toward women who seek a career in public service, but the first five tips apply to anyone wanting to thrive in their legal career. In her seventh tip, Wiley touches on the pipeline fallacy and our implicit biases. She states:

If you’re in management, saying that there are no qualified women to hire is a cop-out. This is really important: There’s an assumption that if you’re looking for diversity, you’re sacrificing quality. The reality is that often people make selections based on biases that they’re not even aware they have. ‘Well, I know this candidate, so I know what this candidate can do. I don’t know this other candidate.’

I’ve had people say this to me: Even though the résumés were equal in terms of qualification, we picked this man who is white because we know him. And I was like, ‘Well, that’s not picking the best person. That’s picking the person you know.’

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If you have fifteen minutes, Wiley’s interview is well worth your time. It is featured in The Cut’s Taking Care of Business section, which spends a week devoted to taking our professional lives up a notch and features other great articles such as: ‘I Don’t Want to Be That Token’: Women of Color Discuss Careers and Ambition, Can’t find a mentor? Look to Your Peers, and Don’t Hide Your Maternity Leave.

Whether you take the time to read these articles or not, the question is: what are you doing this week to take your professional life up a notch?

Renwei Chung headshotRenwei Chung is the Diversity Columnist at Above the Law. You can contact Renwei by email at projectrenwei@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter (@renweichung), or connect with him on LinkedIn.

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