Is a Women's Initiative Meeting Worth Your Time?

A while back, a few of you responded to my inquiry on behalf of Denise Howell regarding the value, or lack thereof, of law firm diversity committees.

As promised, Denise wrote an article on this subject, which was just published.  It's called Is a Women's Initiative Meeting Worth Your Time?

Denise's ultimate conclusion, which I'm inclined to agree with, is that while these types of initiatives have potential, they're mostly just window dressing at the present time.

From the article:

It's hard to escape women's initiatives and committees. After all, almost every big firm has one. But they may do more harm than good.

"I get concerned about programs that don't accomplish things and wind up being an object of ridicule," says Holly English, president of the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) and counsel with Post, Polak, Goodsell, MacNeill & Strauchler in Roseland, N.J.

Unless a firm is committed to achieving and charting results -- in areas like the percentage of women retained, how many make equity and nonequity partner and in what time frame, the extent to which "of counsel" is shorthand for a no-advancement career ghetto and disparate income and management representation -- a women's initiative is more show than substance...

I tend to think women's initiatives attempt too little, limiting themselves to encouraging women to be like men, at least the ones we think of as traditionally successful lawyers. Hone your skills, bring in clients, find 56 productive hours in each diurnal cycle, and the keys to the kingdom will be yours. This approach ignores so-called lifestyle issues that transcend gender lines and bar lawyers from achieving success on unconventional paths, at least at big firms.

I'm not ready to give up on women's initiatives, but I am still waiting for a firm to step up and show it can be more than mere window dressing. One way to accomplish that: Appoint a Women's Czar, a top management member whose job is to ensure that women come to the firm, stay there and participate meaningfully in running it and whose compensation -- and job security -- rises and falls on statistics related to those goals. Until then, I'm sure you can find better things to do with your time than attend next month's committee meeting.

Comments

[wvu 09]

how do we actually CHANGE? im fed up with this. this week i got kicked out of a meeting b/c there might be harsh language unsuitable for a lady. its 2008. why is this still happening?

[LawyerChick]

The other problem is - what if the "Women's Czar" thinks they know how to effect change but they really don't?

As an example I'll use a firm where I had previously worked. There were a number of summer associates of color who were concerned that a number of remarks by partners showed a real insensitivity toward issues of race and gender. None of us thought anyone was trying to be malicious or consciously exclusionary. In trying to show its sensitivity, the firm chose a minority female associate to try to understand what the issues were. This associate took a bunch of the minority associates to lunch and bluntly said, "What's this problem I hear about minority summers?" To which, of course, the summers looked down at their plates and said, what, no problem, there are no problems here...