Biglaw

Twitter Bot Calling Out Gender Pay Gaps At Law Firms Tweeting About International Women’s Day

Maybe back up those platitudes.

By Joe Patrice on March 08, 2022 2:01 pm

Rich Businessman Poor BusinesswomanIt’s International Women’s Day, which means it’s time for major institutions to gird their social justice brands with social media posts about their commitment to women’s rights and gender equality. From schools to the arts to auto manufacturers, everyone wants in on the platitudes today.

And law firms are no exception.

Except in the UK, salary transparency laws require any employer with over 250 employees to publish gender pay gap figures every year. Which has set up some awkwardness for Biglaw firms operating in the UK. From Legal Cheek:

The account @PayGapApp is retweeting law firm and other employers’ tweets commemorating the global day with an auto response detailing their median hourly pay gap using data from a UK government website.

While most of the firms captured by the bot and featured in the Legal Cheek roundup are more local, a few global Biglaw heavies got hit. For example, Shearman tweeted out this:

Automatically generating this response:

So far, Shearman, DLA Piper, White & Case, and Womble Bond Dickinson are all on the list, but institutions continue to post. We’ll keep an eye on it.

‘Gender pay gap bot’ targets law firms tweeting about International Women’s Day [Legal Cheek]