Women Lawyers--Back on Track

Dressing "conservatively".

Yes, I know I said I wasn't posting this summer, but, I'm the boss of this blog and I make the decisions!

So, I was looking at myself in the mirror yesterday, considering my long hair.  I've always liked my hair long, and now that I'm not in a "traditional" legal environment, that's how I choose to wear it.  But, when working as an associate full-time in a private law firm, I felt as though I had to cut it short in order to appear "professional." 

I also took great care to dress conservatively, especially when appearing in court before a male judge.  I would wear knee-length skirt suits, as opposed to shorter skirts or pant suits, minimal jewelry, conservative pumps and tops that were anything but low cut.

My rationale behind these decisions was based, in part, upon comments made by many male lawyers about female lawyers--the gist of the comments being that it was distracting when women wore their hair long and pushed it out of their face, or wore short skirts, or low cut shirts or sparkly jewelry or--well, the list goes on and on.

So, as I stood before the mirror, looking at my now-long hair, it occurred to me, for the first time that I've never once heard of a male lawyer who gave a second thought to his appearance when appearing before a female judge.

I've never heard a guy appearing before a women judge say:

• "I tried to downplay my alpha-maleness by wearing a pink tie so she wouldn't feel that I was trying to challenge her." 
• "I tried to speak in a softer, slightly higher voice, so she wouldn't get unintentionally turned on by my manly, deep voice."
• "I didn't comb my hair over my bald spot when I appeared before her so that: 1) she'd feel superior to me, in that she had more hair than I do, and 2) would be repulsed by my baldness and thus not overcome by her lust for me."
• "I pulled out the ol' earring from college and popped it into my left ear, just so that she could relate better to me."

Can you imagine?  Yeah, I thought so.  Me neither.

So, suffice to say, I won't be cutting my hair anytime soon. 

Toe Cleavage: Offensive to the Legal Profession?

Apparently, a group of lawyers in Memphis recently spent a lot of time mulling over just such weighty issues as toe cleavage.  According to this Memphis Daily News article, a bunch of Memphis lawyers and judges met to discuss the issue of a dress code for local lawyers. 

The meeting included "an impromptu modeling of shoes to determine if either pair represented “cocktail shoes,” and if they did, whether they were inappropriate or disrespectful to the courts."

Some attendees were particularly "offended by too-short skirts, too much cleavage or too much arm being shown, and running shoes being worn in the courthouse."

At issue was a dress code proposed by a number of Memphis Bar Assocations.

The proposed rule at issue reads as follows:

“All attorneys should wear appropriate attire. Men shall wear coats, ties, slacks and appropriate footwear, which does not include athletic shoes or shoes without socks. Women shall wear professional and conservative attire, such as dresses with jackets, suits or pantsuits (with appropriate tops), and appropriate footwear, which does not include cocktail shoes or sandals or athletic shoes."

I think my favorite part of the rule is that the attire for women is specifically described as "conservative."  For some reason, men need not dress "conservatively".  Presumably 1970's style leisure suits would be perfectly appropriate for men to wear court.

And, one wonders how cold-weather-climate attorneys like myself are expected to handle the issue of boots in the winter.  Boot are most certainly not "appropriate footwear" under the proposed rule.  However, they are an absolute necessity when you have to walk a few blocks to court in the middle of an Upstate NY winter. 

When I was an Assistant Public Defender, I would drag my 60 files behind me in a box on a luggage trolley through sidewalks covered with snow, wearing boots and carrying a bag with my heels inside of it.  I'd then change my footwear prior to court, but was lucky enough to have a place to store it, since I was essentially a fixture in the courtroom

Things were more difficult once I began working at a law firm.  I attended court only occasionally, and would have to change my shoes before entering the courtroom.  I always had a difficult time figuring out where to leave my boots, since there was no place set aside for that purpose.  Sometimes I'd just carry them inside the courtroom and leave them, wet and covered with salt from the streets, at my seat.

Men had the luxury of slipping "rubbers" over their (flat) shoes.  Many of them wore the unattractive foot coverings into court as well, and I never heard any complaints about that particular practice.

Meanwhile, the ABA Journal blog recently discussed the issue of dress codes for lawyers as well, and referenced this Wall Street Journal article:  Bare-Legged Ladies: Hosiery Reveals Office Divide.

I think that most women would agree that, in general, nylons are ridiculously uncomfortable.  And,  Nylons in 90 degree, humid weather are downright torture.   Lined pantsuits in the summer are even worse.  The only bearable option is a skirt without nylons.

Nylons are simply not an option in the summer.  Period. 

So, I would respectfully suggest, my fellow lawyers, that you take your dress code and implement it in a jurisdiction where the sun don't shine (and the snow don't fall). 

 

We Needed a Study to Figure This Out?

I was honestly amazed to read this article summarizing a study that concluded that "female lawyers more likely to practice in firms, less likely to make partner."  It wasn't the results of the study that surprised me--it was that the study was conducted in the first instance.

Apparently, a University of Iowa sociologist "analyzed data collected from two groups of Michigan Law School graduates -- the classes of 1972-78 and 1979-85 -- who completed surveys one, five and 15 years after graduation."

After conducting extensive analysis, she concluded that:

The legal profession's efforts to promote diversity are working to get women lawyers in the law firm door, but once they're in, they remain less likely to be promoted to partner...

The study...found that women who practiced in a firm for five or more years were 13 percent less likely than men to make partner, even if their qualifications were equal and regardless of whether they had children.

I could have told you that without conducting a study.

The article did have some interesting observations about the reasons for the disparity, even though the results of the study seemed fairly obvious.  From the end of the article:

"Older men tend to feel less comfortable spending time with a young woman than with a young man. With the guys, it's more of a father-son bond -- let's play some golf, let's hit happy hour, and I'll give you some advice about your career and see what I can do to help you," she said. "Men might shy away from that type of mentoring relationship with a young woman because they're afraid of what people will think."

And, Noonan notes, the selection process for partnership isn't necessarily objective. Even if a woman does well in her work, colleagues with the clout to name partners may still have difficulty picturing her in a position of power.

Are successful women avoiding motherhood?

So asks this article from a San Francisco ABC affiliate.  It's an interesting article, but the title is poorly worded in my opinion.  The article implies that the only way to be "successful" is to have a full-time career.

I completely disagree with that.  Success is in the eye of the beholder, as far as I'm concerned.  There is not one way to define success, and balancing a part-time schedule for a portion of one's career with family and achieving happiness is certainly a form of success.

That being said, it's an interesting, although somewhat depressing article.  I'm looking forward to the day when the statistics quoted in the article tend to be more favorable toward women with careers and families.

From the article:

A new study from Washington & Lee University shows professional women are walking away from motherhood and marriage -- more than the general population.

Law professor Robin Wilson's research makes up a chapter in a new book called "Rethinking Business Management."

She says, while four-fifths of senior male lawyers have children, only two-thirds of senior women do, and there is a similar break from marriage.

She looked at more than 100,000 people with at least a college degree, and found that women lawyers, doctors and MBA's are opting out of marriage at a higher rate than their male counterparts. When they do marry, women professionals have a harder time making it last...

"Professional men are much more likely to be married to homemakers or women who don't have the financial withdrawal to leave, even if they want or need to," says Williams.

Wilson's research show that among women with a law degree, just shy of 6 percent have a stay-at-home spouse, versus nearly 40 percent of male lawyers. For MBA's, nearly 10 percent of women have a spouse at home, compared with 44 percent of men. For MD's it's just over 12 percent for women versus 48 percent for male MD's.

As for having families, we asked Williams, what was wrong with careers where you can't have children.

"There aren't careers where you can't have children. There are careers where women can't have children. So the question is, are we going to design careers so that only men can have them if they want a conventional family life? Or are we going to design careers so that either men or women can have them if they want a conventional family life?"...

Williams says Gen-X and Gen-X men show signs of being different than their baby-boomer dads. The WorkLife Center hotline is frequently hearing from young men about issues like paternity leave.

Leaving the law over lack of maternity leave

Thanks to Susan Cartier Liebel of the Building a Solo Practice LLC blog for bringing this article from Lawyers Weekly to my attention, which discusses maternity leave issues encountered by our colleagues on the other side of the border in Canada.

The article examines the familiar dilemma many women lawyers, regardless of citizenship, face after the birth of their children:  have kids, lose business, lose credibility, lose standing, lose income, lose all that you've worked for. 

Is there a solution?  You bet there is. Legal employers planning for and accepting the inevitable.

Legal employers should presume that 80% of their women attorneys will likely have children during their fertile years and that most will take 3 months maternity leave and might also want to work a reduced schedule for a few years while their children are young.  Smart employers will ensure that their office and staffing infrastructure will accommodate these predictable life events and temporary schedule changes by allowing case management by teams of attorneys rather than a single lawyer.  That way, one lawyer can run with a case when another is out on leave.

In the long run, firms will save money by retaining employees and avoiding the cost of hiring and training replacements, even if there is a temporary loss of income due to the birth of a child. 

Of course, most firms are shortsighted and fail to appreciate the long term benefits of retaining good lawyers who happen to have been born with a reproductive system that requires them to bear the burden  of carrying offspring to term and caring for the child in the months after its birth. 

Perhaps that sad fact will change sometime soon.

From the article:

Maternity leaves don’t come easy for women practising in small firms. Financial challenges loom large; hanging on to clients poses a major difficulty. The result: they have been leaving private practice in droves...

“There were two main issues we heard recurring,” Warkentin said. “The first was the hardship to maintain an income during a leave of absence, and the second was maintaining the practice during the leave. If you take a leave of absence, you lose the income flow, and you also lose your clients — you don’t have a practice to return to"...

(E)veryone agrees that women in small firms need help with maternity leaves in order to stem the tide leaving private practice.

“The financial hurdles faced by female sole practitioners...are so big that the decision to have children really comes down to ‘can I afford to do it?’” Newton-Smith said. “The fear of not being able to have a family drives many women out.”

When All Efforts Fail to Retain Them, Unintentional Biases May Be at Work

Ellen Ostrow wrote a great article for the New York Law journal that was published last week:  When All Efforts Fail to Retain Them, Unintentional Biases May Be at Work.

In it, she discusses the underlying assumptions and stereotypes that people have about women and how they react to women who exhibit traits in violations of the stereotypes. 

Most often, it is this type of bias that women lawyers encounter on a day to day basis.  Throughout my legal career--in fact, it started as soon as I entered law school--I 've run into this type of bias time and time again.

I encounter it far less now that I'm practicing law on my own terms.  But I'm still searching for the perfect balance that will allow me to be myself without losing face in the legal world.

Articles like this one help me better understand how to do just that. 

From the article:

(D)iverse attorneys, more than their white male counterparts, bump up against other cultural norms that have been part of law firm mores for so long that they appear to be professional requirements rather than preferences or the way things have always been done.

In particular, unintentional biases may lead many women and attorneys of color to leave their firms. Psychological research indicates that unintentional biases arise from the normal human tendencies to categorize things and people into groups, to prefer familiar things and similar people and to cognitively simplify our complex world. These mental processes evolved no doubt due to their survival value (e.g., it's essential to differentiate dangerous enemies from our kin.)...

It is also the case that we favor our own groups and their members while disparaging or discriminating against groups to which we do not belong. For example, we are likely to see them as less able than in-group members, to recall their errors while easily remembering the successes of similar others, to be less generous and at times to behave more aggressively toward them...

Cognitive psychologists have demonstrated that stereotypes and biases can operate outside of our conscious awareness, distorting our perceptions, judgments and memories and influencing our behavior. Implicit biases most often reflect stereotypes that people truly do not know they have and often consciously reject and abhor...

A partner who consciously or unconsciously believes that mothers are less committed to their legal careers than are attorneys without children might be likely to interpret a woman's absence from her office as a sign that she's home with her children rather than with a client. In fact, this is precisely what surveys conducted by the Project for Attorney Retention have found.

Whereas attorneys who are not parents are assumed to be engaged in some work-related activity when not at their desks, once women return from maternity leave, their absences are often attributed to involvement in family affairs. This assumption both derives from and confirms the theory that her commitment to her career has diminished...

The day-to-day experience of diverse attorneys is often filled with experiences of invisibility: the absence of a greeting or eye contact, minimal interaction, an unfriendly tone of voice, a facial expression communicating impatience, or cool and rejecting body language...

The subtlety of micro-aggressions makes them thorny to protest. It's difficult to imagine a woman associate complaining to a partner that he makes eye contact with the men in his practice group but not with her. People from stigmatized groups are often least likely to complain, in an effort to avoid confirming the stereotyped traits attributed to them. The fear of being labeled a "whiner" regularly silences women associates...

Instead of standard diversity training, firms might do better in their retention efforts by providing training in emotional intelligence, effective delivery of feedback, interpersonal conflict management and mechanisms for preventing biases from influencing judgments and behavior.

Once Off the Legal Ladder, Can You Get Back On?

Still no recent articles of relevance, so here is yet another post of mine from the past:

*******

Yesterday I was reading a magazine for which my sister is a deputy editor, New York Family.  There was a section that focused on working mothers and consisted of interviews of a number of working women.  In one of the interviews, an executive director of a hospital opined that she didn't judge women who left work after having a child.  But then she added the one comment that strikes fear in the hearts of parents who are considering leaving their current job:  "(T)he hard thing is, 'How do you get back in?'"

How do you get back in?  And what does that even mean "to get back in"?  Is it as hard as many would claim?  Is your professional life over if you leave work when your children are young--smack dab in the middle of what some would claim is the most important part of your climb up the ladder to a "successful" career?

My answer--nope, your career is not over.  Your legal career with that particular employer is probably over.  And, you may have to re-define what "success" means to you.  In particular, you'll have to ignore how other lawyers, especially those in law firms, define a "successful" legal career. But, you will be able to re-enter the workforce and have a successful and fulfilling career when you do decide to return to the working world.

I read a study a few years back that suggested that professionals who have left the workforce to care for their children should try to return to the workforce within three years, at least on a part-time basis.  The reason given for that recommendation was twofold:  employers have a tendency to believe that you've been out of the loop for too long after more than a three year break, and more importantly, you face a psychological barrier after three years that prevents you from believing that you can do it.

So, keep that three year marker in mind.  And, don't listen to those who say you can't "get back in."  You can.   It'll take some creativity.  It'll take some ingenuity.  You'll have to think outside the box.  And, you'll have to network.  But you can do it.  And, you will.  And, you'll succeed--on your own terms, and, most importantly, on your own schedule.

Firms looking for ways to keep young associates around

Law firms seem to be really, really interested trying to figure out what all those "confusing" and/or "confused" young associates want.  In fact, they're willing to do study after study after study--and hire consultant after consultant after consultant--to try and figure out the answer to this oh-so-elusive question.

The Maryland Daily Record recently addressed this issue in a lengthy article that essentially rehashed all that we've heard before:  associates would happily work for less compensation in exchange for flexibility and more interesting work.  They're  bored, overworked and feel under appreciated.

One wonders how many times it needs to be said before changes are actually implemented?  Me thinks that nothing will change anytime soon, but perhaps I'm overly cynical.

From the article:

Whereas 25 or 30 years ago, associates joined a firm for life, associates today feel freer to switch firms in pursuit of their financial, professional and personal goals...

The NALP Foundation, which conducts research on the legal profession, found in 2000 that 59 percent of associates who had been out of law school for about five years had already left their first firm.

In 2005, that number was 78 percent, according to statistics cited by the consulting firm Hildebrandt International Inc. A recent survey by the Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia showed that of 551 attorneys polled, three-quarters of the women and half the men were considering leaving their jobs in the next five years.

Every time an associate leaves, it can cost a firm up to $350,000 to hire and train someone new...

But according to associates and associate retention experts, the major reason associates leave is not money. The top motivators are grueling hours, boring work and poisonous firm culture, they say...

“[F]orget about being able to balance work and family, they can’t even get a date because they’re so beholden to the whims of the partners,” Chanow said. Associates want to have “time with their family, time to meet people if they don’t have family, time to climb a mountain.” ...

Chanow said long hours are especially tough on women with children, so they end up leaving firms at even higher rates than men do. She said they are especially likely to leave if they feel they have no chance of becoming a partner.

Some women look around and see that no woman has made partner in their practice group in years, so they assess their chances as slim and decide to leave, she said...

Gallagher’s Linda Jones said salaries matter more to law students trying to decide where to work than they do to associates deciding whether to stay.

“Studies always show that compensation may be really important on the front end, but as long as people are satisfactorily compensated, it’s not the most important thing,” Jones said.

How To Respond?

So, fellow women lawyers, I've a question for you.  But, first, let me set the scene.

A friend of mine is on a committee with two men, and their task is to set up a panel for a seminar.  Many of the panelists will be judges and other "important" people.  A similar panel was held in the distant past, and as a result, there is a notebook full of materials (the handouts--about 100 pages or so) from that seminar.

Throughout the meeting, the self-declared "leader" of the committee tended to talk to and make eye contact with, the other male, for the most part.  He also, on a few occasions, when discussing things that needed to be done or decisions that needed to be made, would say "you and I...oh and (women attorney)...need to do..."

At the most recent meeting, the leader handed my friend the notebook (which had been in possession of  the other man all along) and asked her if she would look over it and determine which materials might be useful for the upcoming seminar.

Now, this might sound like somewhat of an innocent request, but keep in mind that the only tasks that remain, now that the committee has met a few times and has agreed upon the format and content of the seminar, is to contact the judges and other "important" people. 

Presumably, those tasks will be left to the men, since my friend has now been assigned what is essentially an administrative (and extremely dull) task.  Furthermore, it's pointless since the notebook consists mostly of old power point presentations prepared by prior participants, none of whom will be on the panel this time. 

Typical, in my experience.  Woman tend to be assigned the "background" stuff, much of which is essentially administrative.  Women are assigned grunt work while men get all the glory.

So, knowing this, how does one respond when "asked" to perform a menial task when serving on a committee with men? 

Shouting "No, you sexist pig!  I'm not your secretary!" is essentially ineffective, since the request seems so innocent. 

Calmly refusing without declaring sexism would likewise be ineffective, since the end result is to make one appear to be unhelpful and disagreeable. 

Make a "joke" about giving the woman the administrative task?

What does one do?

This type of situation is an example of what is so frustrating about practicing law as a woman.  The sexism is so subtle and is based upon the underlying assumptions and stereotypes of those with whom you interact--that woman are more organized and thus more adept at the behind the scenes tasks.  So, women repeatedly receive dull, background assignments of lower importance.

And, although women are purportedly on "equal" footing, they are constantly talked over and interrupted.  Women are excluded from mixed gender groups by virtue of body language and eye contact.  When women manage to get a word in edgewise, their contribution is discounted as irrelevant or unimportant.  And yet, when a man makes the same point 2 minutes later, it's met with declarations of genius.

These things are so subtle, and yet so effective at making women lawyers feel like second class citizens. 

But, the issue remains.  What does one do?  How does one avoid being an "overbearing bitch" in these situations? 

What say you, mis amigas?

Women Really Want A Level Playing Field

There's a great article over at the Complete Lawyer written by Cathy S. Wright:  Women Really Want A Level Playing Field.  I highly recommend that you give it a good read.

In this article she discusses the differences in the ways that men and women interact and perceive each other.  In my experience, many of her observations are right on point.  The sub-titles of the article should give you a good idea of what to expect:

• While Our Goals May Be The Same, Our Strategies For Solutions Vary In Business
• Women Often Still Feel Like Outsiders
• Men And Women Are Divided By Language
• Men And Women Are Motivated Differently
• Reciprocity Means Different Things To Men And Women
• Men And Women Bear Different Life Responsibilities

My favorite part of the article is the concluding paragraphs, where she responds to the (maddening, in my opinion) claim by some that working women have a made a "choice" and have to live up to the ramifications.  I agree 100% with her take on this issue:

Some men (and more than a few women) respond that these issues are the result of life choices. Families with an at-home partner add that they are making the financial sacrifice to have someone manage the home front, so they feel working women have no right to have their life choices subsidized by business.

I don’t think this is an either/or proposition; one reality doesn’t cancel the other. Rather, we need to acknowledge that the structure of our society forces women lawyers to assume burdens and make choices that most of their male counterparts don’t share. Women-owned business is the fastest growing segment of the US economy, and as hard as it is to start a business, these businesses are succeeding equally with businesses started by men. Many observers believe that this trend reflects the impulsion of women to set up organizations that respect the realities of their lives. These new businesses require women to work hard, maybe even harder, than they do in the corporate world, and yet they succeed. Freed of the necessity to accommodate to structures that sometimes feel unfriendly, women are finding ways to be successful. The lesson here is that women aren’t failing to accommodate to the corporate world anymore than the corporate world is failing to accommodate women. Clearly there are ways that work for women to work. 

Both genders can take steps to ameliorate the current situation. We all need to become aware of how our unconscious differences create misunderstandings. Recognizing that this is a team issue rather than a “women’s issue” is another essential component to leveraging a law firm’s investment in talented women employees. And while women lawyers need to take the responsibility for understanding the ground rules in the arena they have chosen, men need to develop a sense of appreciation, and perhaps some humility, about the home court advantages they may take for granted.