3 Reasons Women In Law Are Still Waiting On Equality

Do we really truly need another Initiative with a capital I?

Women know they’re just as capable of success and achievement as men, but for whatever reasons, some men are still unclear about the concept.

Exhibit 1 for this is a Google engineer, since sacked, who thinks that women are biologically unsuited for tech careers.

Here’s Exhibit 2.

Once again, these stories illustrate just how hard it still is for women to succeed in what have been traditionally male-centric careers, including law.

It’s beyond irritating that women lawyers still need initiatives such as this one. It’s described as a “groundbreaking Presidential Initiative [notice the capital letters] focused on increasing the number of women lawyers who pursue successful long-term careers in the law.” We’ve had gazillions (I exaggerate a little, but only a little) of initiatives on propelling women into equity partnership positions and leadership roles. (Just Google “initiatives for women lawyers” or some such language and the number of search results that pop up will prompt either a migraine or the need for a drink or both.)

The Initiative includes “…a set of innovative applied research projects for honing best practices to stem the steady loss over time of experienced women lawyers in private practice.” Does “private practice” include women in corporate law departments? For those with short memories, remember that it’s the in-house lawyers that decide where matters go and to whom. Women refer to other women…or do they?

The Initiative says that the need for it is “pressing,” [duh] and goes on to say that “some twenty years after graduating from law school-a time when lawyers should be in their most productive years-far too many women have not reached the same success as men, or have left the profession entirely.” I’m not sure that far too many women have left the profession entirely, but they have indeed ditched the Biglaw firm or even medium law firm life to strike out on their own as solos or with other like-minded lawyers.

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Do we really truly need another Initiative with a capital I? My legal recruiter friend wonders “…whether the ABA’s name and funding will make anyone in power sit up and listen—and do something. I wish that all of these initiatives—including those done by ACC, Joan William’s center at UC Hastings, various law schools (i.e., UT’s Center for Women in Law) and bar associations, law firm initiatives, and the like would coordinate.” As she points out, there’s a lot of reinventing the wheel, and perhaps if there was collaboration and coordination, “perhaps we’d get farther faster.” Amen to that.

Here are just a couple of reasons we haven’t. They’re not that difficult to discern:

1. In these days of “you eat what you kill” business model, there’s a reluctance to share, be it origination credit, billing hours, or what have you. How many men take women along to presentations and let the women actually conduct the presentation? How many women actually get to first chair a trial or arbitration? (See link above.)

2. Whether acknowledged or not, women have the major responsibilities for child care and now, in this ever growing sandwich generation, for elder care. How many male lawyers, in firms of whatever size, have primary responsibility for either or both?

3. Women still don’t have the books of business that entice firms to hire and keep them, and most firms don’t provide the training in marketing, branding, and other “ings” to help women lawyers succeed. It’s all about the business, but that approach is short-sighted. It’s also all about relationships, and women are much more relationship oriented. It’s not just a transaction or a piece of litigation to women lawyers; it’s cultivating relationships that lead to friendships, referrals, and additional business.

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Jordan Furlong’s recent post points out the seemingly perennial roadblocks that women lawyers continue to confront.

The ABA Initiative will fund “innovative research …using life cycle models borrowed from…sociology, social psychology, and economics. The overall goal is to make empirically based recommendations for what law firms, corporations, bar associations, and individual lawyers can do to enhance the prospects for women to reach the highest levels of practice.”

One aspect that particularly intrigues me as an old lady lawyer is the “study of women lawyers who change career direction after age 55, exploring the nature of the changes, characteristics, reasons why, and the positives and challenges of taking a different direction in law practice.”

Reasons why? Please. Can you say “Lay off, reduction in force, going in a different direction, succession planning,” and all the other code words for “you’re old and we don’t value your experience and expertise any more and you’re expensive and…you’re old?” We all know we can’t say those things, but there are subtle (and not so subtle) ways of conveying those reasons without running afoul of age discrimination laws. Severance agreements anyone?

Few women lawyers post-55 are able to successfully transition, given the rampant age discrimination that exists and is openly tolerated. Based on my email traffic, lots of women lawyers post 55 would like to continue to have successful legal careers, if they weren’t cut off at the knees.

The Initiative’s goals are laudable, but since gender parity at senior levels of the profession won’t be reached until 2181 [not a typo], everyone reading this now and for rest of this century and well into the start of the next will all be taking dirt naps long before then. We should haven’t to wait that long. We’ve waited long enough, and we’re still waiting, some more patiently than others. 

Pardon my cynicism, but unless and until the law practice culture changes, you can have all the Initiatives in the world, but what good do they do? It’s the old story of leading a horse to water. Just as you can’t get that horse to drink, you can’t get the culture to change unless and until it really wants to. Change imposed upon people doesn’t work. Those of us who became lawyers in the 70s and 80s and who have tried so hard since then to change the culture won’t be around to see change, if any. More’s the pity.


old lady lawyer elderly woman grandmother grandma laptop computerJill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.