I got an e-mail the other day telling me that I should read an article published by the ABA.  Normally I ignore such messages, but this one caught my eye.  The title of the article was “Not One Legal Secretary Preferred Working with Women Lawyers.”  Hummm.  I thought.  So I read it.

On Friday, October 28, 2011 the ABA Journal posted this article in their online content. 

This article is based on a study called “If you become his second wife, you are a fool: Shifting paradigms of the roles, perceptions, and working conditions of legal secretaries in large law firms.”  The full study is available at this link. The problem is that the ABA’s article, in my opinion, is a complete mischaracterization of the study.

On October 31, 2011, a group of women attorneys including the President of California Women Lawyers, Georgia Black Women Lawyers, and others had a phone conference with ABA Editor, Allen Pusey.  Those on the call ultimately demanded an apology and a retraction.  At the time of this writing, neither has happened.

On Wednesday, November 2, 2011, Forbes published a piece about women demanding an apology from the ABA.  

Two days later, on Friday, November 4, 2011, the ABA ran another article, basically saying the original article did women lawyers a favor by pointing to the fact we are discriminated against, and we don’t like to talk about it, so we got angry.  That is my summary. Read it and decide for yourself.

I am not a member of the ABA.  I dropped my membership and I am glad I did.  I think both articles should be retracted immediately.  The title of the initial article is inaccurate.  The study actually states that 47 percent of those surveyed had no opinion as to whether they preferred to work for male or female partners or associates.  With almost half of survey respondents expressing no opinion, it is a distortion of the results to say that “not one” legal secretary preferred working with women partners.

Additionally, the article gives the impression that the survey heavily emphasized the issue of legal secretaries working with women partners.  Such a survey on its face is insulting and feeds into gender stereotypes.  We do not (and should not) read about surveys regarding working with partners of particular religious affiliations, ethnicities, or sexual orientations.  While the study surveyed legal secretaries on a wide range of issues, two thirds of the ABA article focused on only one issue, secretaries working with women partners.  By strongly focusing on the survey results dealing with legal secretaries working with women lawyers, the article misrepresents the substance of the underlying study.  It gives disproportionate attention to but one of many issues addressed and in so doing continues to perpetuate negative stereotypes of women lawyers.  

Legal secretaries play an important role in law firms, and surveying how that role has evolved during the past 50 years is a worthwhile endeavor.  The ABA Journal’s emphasis on one aspect of that study does a disservice to legal secretaries as well as the women lawyers with whom they work.  I hope you will join me in writing to that organization asking for a retraction and apology. If you are interested in more background information or the steps certain women lawyers groups are taking, please let me know.  I am proud to be a DRI woman and I am proud to be on its Women in the Law Committee.

An article from AM Law Daily suggests that the continual bad press about the lack of discernible growth in female leadership positions in large law firms and legal departments may be causing a decline in female students applying to law school.  Although it is constantly stated that women make up around 50% percent of the students in our nation’s law schools, the statistics seem to be suggesting a decline.  The numbers at the top ten law schools show that female students make up around 40% of the population, with only the University of Berkeley ahead of the crowd with a female law student population of 52.9%.  Such numbers may not be an immediate cause for concern, but the article does point to statistics that show that there has been a steady decline, albeit a small one, in female enrollment since 2002. 

Is this just the product of regular ups and downs in enrollment levels or a cause for concern that the legal profession should be evaluating?  And if fewer women actually enter the legal profession over time will it further exacerbate the compensation disparity issues between female and male lawyers?  More than anything it may simply be the combination of many factors – the state of the economy and the profession, the cost of law school compared to its benefits and pressures, and the articles and blog reports about the alleged lack of growth potential in Big Law.

Data reported by the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) and Vault.com in the fall of 2010, substantiated fears that the effects of the recession would undo diversity gains achieved in the legal profession over the past decades.  Similarly, a recent report issued by the New York City Bar documents a slippage of hard-won diversity gains last year at local law firms.  The city bar surveyed firms that are signatories to a 2004 statement of diversity principles that articulated both short-term and long-term goals related to the hiring, retention and promotion of diverse attorneys.  The survey found that for the first time since March 2004, the percentage of minorities and women had declined at almost all levels.  Further, the report noted that if the pace of change is not accelerated, the share of minorities holding partnerships would not equal their representation among associates for 40 years and, for women attorneys, it would take 50 years to catch up.  While the report suggests that recent declines are likely related to the recession, it also noted that the voluntary turnover rate has been consistently higher for minority and women attorneys thus highlighting that retention remains a key problem.
 
The recession has challenged law firms to be innovative and to leverage simple changes in billing into new business and higher revenue.  What innovations has your law firm implemented to stretch diversity dollars to avoid suppressing the effort and momentum that has been built over the past decades? 
 
Good business sense dictates that, in a weak economy, diversity efforts must be part of a firm's long-range plans.  The global economy is diverse and those firms that realize this fact can maximize the talents and skills that their diverse attorneys bring to the table to add to their bottom lines.  What best practices has your firm implemented (either formal or informal) to retain diverse attorneys?

I have seen a few versions of this interview/article recently. This time it galvanized me to put fingers to keyboard, perhaps because I recall painfully my own self-consciousness in a law school classroom, frightened into silence by feelings of intellectual and verbal inadequacy.  With almost 2 decades of law practice under my belt, I have learned to live, and practice, the adage: Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  But the author’s points resonate nonetheless, and chafe a bit.  It seems that there are a few perspectives missing from this genre of article: 1) Is it, in fact, the case that women lawyers are self-selecting out of the high-profile trial and appellate level careers? 2) What about all of the women trial and appellate lawyers in DRI who defy the notions that are represented in these articles?  3) Does active participation in an organization such as DRI provide a place where women trial and appellate lawyers can acquire skills that will instill the confidence necessary to compete for the high profile cases? My fear of speaking out in law school, fortunately, did not extend beyond the classroom walls, and certainly isn’t the case in a courtroom, boardroom, or auditorium. I fear now, though, that perception becomes reality for women lawyers (aspiring and practicing) when articles such as this proliferate without a discussion and examples of where women ARE achieving prominence in high profile cases.

Though New Hampshire is one of the smallest Legal Bars in the nation, its recent Ten Year Gender Survey contains important data for the country.    In the Granite State and nationally strides have been made, inequality remains.  Women are graduating from law schools at unprecedented levels.  Social norms regarding traditional roles of women in society are evaporating.  However, fewer female attorneys are making partner, fewer are litigators, fewer are in management positions, and, unfortunately, sexist attitudes continue to be observed frequently.  This is not a female v. male issue, but an issue that influences the credibility of our profession within society.

DRI is poised to lead the way in promoting “Women in the Law.”  That exciting new committee can make a difference if we all get behind it by taking the message to our firms, our SLDO’s and our state bar associations.  Further, it is essential to both recognize that our clients want gender and ethnic diversity and to respond accordingly.  Traditionally, lawyers lead the way for social change; that change begins at home.  Anyone interested in this issue should review the New Hampshire Gender Equality Committee report and is welcome to contact me, Chair, NH Bar Gender Equality Committee, to share ideas and generally collaborate on this issue.  By working together, we can continue to make progress toward gender equality for our profession.

Manhattan U.S. District Court Judge Harold Baer, Jr. ordered two firms serving as co-lead counsel in a securities class action to "make every effort" to assign at least one minority and one woman to the case.  

Judge Baer ruled, “WHEREAS this proposed class includes thousands of participants, both male and female, arguably from diverse backgrounds, and it is therefore important to all concerned that there is evidence of diversity, in terms of race and gender, in the class counsel I appoint, see In re J.P. Morgan Chase Cash Balance Litigation, 242 F.R.D. 265, 277 (S.D.N.Y. 2007); it is hereby ORDERED that Co-Lead counsel, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP and Labaton Sucharow LLP, shall make every effort to assign to this matter at least one minority lawyer and one woman lawyer with requisite experience…”

In the 21st century, the legal profession faces no greater challenge than the imperative to advance diversity throughout our ranks.  Is this the start of a trend by the judiciary to meet this challenge?  Are such orders constitutional?  What impact will Judge Baer’s order have on trial team staffing by defense counsel?  Will corporations demand that defense counsel have a diverse trial team as a preemptive measure?

A recent article from Law.com that was featured on DRI Today discusses research done by law and business professors from Temple University and the University of Texas Pan American about the gender pay gap in the legal profession.  The research highlights something that may or may not be surprising – female partners earn less on average than male partners.  According to the research – the pay gap has nothing to do with lower billable hours or performance, but rather has more to do with the way most partnership and promotion opportunities are designed at law firms. 
         
What do you see in happening in your own firms?  What is your firm doing to tackle this issue?  What efforts have you seen that are successful in addressing this issue? 

Read Gender Pay Gap at Law Firms on Law.com here.

A few years ago, when I was expecting my first child, I attended a settlement conference in federal court. While the magistrate and I were waiting for the other side to respond to my most recent offer, we started talking about the challenges women in this profession face when it comes to balancing work and family.  She began reminiscing about when she was a younger lawyer and how demanding our profession can be on working mothers.  She shared with me a story about how she actually participated in a telephone mediation and settled a case while at the hospital delivering her first child.  Of course, being a bit younger and not yet realizing how incredible the demands placed on women in this profession can be, I thought she was nuts.  (Of course, I didn’t tell her that!)  I told myself that will never be me.  I figured whatever was on my desk on that glorious day could wait until I returned to work, or in case of an emergency someone else in the firm could handle it in my absence.  A few very short months later I found myself scheduling my delivery around an important hearing date “that only I could handle” and placing calls to the hospital’s technical support office to find out if the hospital had wireless rooms.  If not, I would need a room where my wireless card would be able to get a signal.  You can imagine the chuckle I got from that request!  When my efforts proved unsuccessful, I had to come up with a “Plan B” and fast.  So, I cleared a few days on my calendar, “scheduled” my delivery and began working remotely the following Monday.  If you think I’m crazy, then you probably haven’t had kids yet.  If you are laughing out loud, then my guess is you’re a mom and you probably did the same thing!

For those of you who have not yet endeavored to find that “balance” between work and family, you’re probably saying that’ll never be you.  I know I did.  But, for those of you who are fighting the good fight, you can probably empathize with my plight and you’re thinking back on your own war stories!  How do we do it?  It’s really quite simple – lack of options.  The good news is that we are venturing down this path at a time when we have so many tools at our disposal that make striking a balance possible.  The reason I decided to write this article is to provide some information about a few useful tools, and also to encourage you to take advantage of the tools we all now take for granted in order to relieve some of the stresses that face working women today. 

While many of us take for granted things like remote access and wi-fi service (these days, most coffee houses offer free wi-fi), we so often forget to take advantage of this kind of widely available technology especially on those “class outside” kind of days that you just hate to waste indoors.  Let’s face it, between the billable hours, the non-stop telephone calls, emails and constant intrusions at the office, and lest we forget the perfectly timed telephone call from your child’s school informing you that your little one is sick just as you are finally sitting down to draft that motion for summary judgment that’s been hanging over your head, there is just no time to stop and smell the roses.  So, we have to improvise.  You can’t take a day off – that’s not even an option – but you can, you should and you must somehow figure out how to strike a balance.  Here is what I suggest:  take your laptop, go down to your favorite coffee house, grab a latte, sit outside, logon to your remote access and get to work writing that motion.  The phone isn’t ringing (don’t forward your phone – opt to call in and get your messages instead), there are no interruptions, and you get to relax and enjoy a little quiet time.  It’s not perfect – personally, I’d rather be reading Cosmo or enjoying a spa day – but we have to take our indulgences where we can. 

Since my kids turned my life upside down, I have become fairly tech savvy out of necessity more than anything else.  Back in the day, things like remote access, laptop computers and wi-fi access either didn’t exist or weren’t readily available.  Fortunately, though, times have changed.  A lot.  From “basic” technology to the uber-chic PDAs that have since come to rule our lives, we can now practice law anywhere that has an Internet connection.  Most of us are used to grabbing the laptop and heading to the coffee house so we can work on Saturday or Sunday afternoon, but what’s stopping you from doing the same thing on a random Tuesday when the weather is perfect and you are a little stir crazy because you have worked through yet another weekend?  Between the hectic schedule that befalls us during the week and the impossible demands that are placed on us over the weekend, it is so easy to forget about us.  I’ve long since given up on reading a good book from start to finish – at least for now – but, by taking advantage of the technology that is placed at our fingertips, it’s possible to bill for that little bit of ‘me time’ that we all so desperately need. 

But, enough about ‘me time’ (such as it is); let’s talk about firm time.  As wives and mothers, we have to be prepared for anything.  What do you do when you are in charge of a major case, you’re a mom, you have a mega-conference with the client, a multitude of experts and probably several local counsel, and your child wakes up with a fever and can’t go to school?  You’ve spent countless hours setting up the conference and it can’t be moved, but you have to stay home and play mom, too.  What seems like an impossible situation is really quite simple to resolve.  Internet conferencing is a great way to collaborate, and with a little pre-planning (for just such an emergency) it can be done with very little effort: simply set up the conference initially as an Internet conference.  That way, you get to impress the participants with your modern approach to conferencing, you might even save the client a few bucks since you’re collaborating online instead of over-the-phone (which is never bad), and you have just made yourself very flexible in the event that a family emergency happens to come up just as your conference is about to start.  So, Internet conferencing is not only practical as a business practice, but it allows you to cope relatively easily with what can (and probably will) occur at some point in your career. 

Internet conferencing is the way to coordinate these kinds of larger scale meetings because they are so difficult to coordinate and even more difficult to reschedule.  You simply can’t afford to have something go wrong at the last minute, and for less than about $500 a year you can set up an Internet conference account that will allow you to share documents, make on-screen revisions and/or comment on shared documents, engage in a multi-party real time collaboration and even record the conversation for future reference.  Better yet, Internet conferencing gives you the flexibility to chair the meeting as easily from your home as from your office and no one is the wiser.  Further, regardless of the infinite number of extraneous circumstances that can present themselves on a given day, Internet conferencing is a phenomenal tool that can be used to maximize the productivity level of these kinds of collaborations.

If you would like to learn more about Internet audio and video conferencing, I highly recommend that you visit some of the websites that offer these services.  For instance, Citrix (a common remote access service provider) offers an online meeting service that incorporates all of these items in one fairly easy-to-use program.  One such website is located at www.gotomeeting.com (Citrix), and you may also want to check out www.webex.com (Cisco Communications) or IBM’s Lotus system, which can be viewed at www.webdialogs.com.  Internet conferencing offers countless advantages over standard conference calling, and it allows you to participate, with documents in hand, from anywhere.  So, whether you’re geared up and ready to chair the meeting in the office or you have to nurture a sick child while simultaneously spearheading a major defense brainstorming session, Internet conferencing can offer an easy and flexible way to fulfill the many, and often times conflicting, roles that we have to fill on any given day. 

If your firm has much occasion to deal with these kinds of conferences and you have not yet looked into Internet video conferencing, then I highly recommend sitting down with your tech support team and getting your office set up for this.  Local counsel would be responsible for technical compliance (which is usually nothing more than a one time relatively inexpensive expenditure), and the cost of setting up the experts or other attendees would be nothing more than a relatively minor part of the overall cost of litigation.  Plus, once the case is over, the equipment is returned to the firm for future use, so there is no real economic loss at all. Given what we spend on experts in mass tort litigation, a few hundred dollars spent to get connected is well worth the investment. 

Internet conferencing is a great tool, but mega-conferences such as those described above are hardly everyday occurrences.  So, let’s talk about what technology can do to help you maximize your day-to-day activities.  Let’s face it, while we are not supposed to, we all check our blackberries, iPhones or other PDAs of choice while traveling between destinations.  After all, that’s valuable billable time, right?  That being the case, it should come as no surprise that software exists that enables you to bill from your PDA.  Now that’s just brilliant!  There are a number of office management programs that offer a PDA component, and frequently the programmer offers free PDA downloads so that you or your firm will not incur any additional cost for the upgrade.  (Check out www.seabill.com or www.palmgear.com to get some ideas for your PDA.) By implementing this kind of software onto your PDA, you can capture some of the time you spend getting ready for traveling in your car, which in turn translates into a better bottom line and frees you up to take that extra five minutes at the coffee house enjoying your latte before heading home to the kids. 

That being said, let’s not get too crazy with overusing the PDA while we’re driving.  I mean, we do want to make it to where we’re going, right?  Fortunately, there are voice-to-text services that make it possible to respond to emails that just can’t wait even a few minutes.  After all, we don’t want to get completely distracted from the task at hand.  Most voice-to-text services are either free or relatively inexpensive, and if you are one of those people that spend as much time texting as you do driving, then I highly recommend looking into this.  These services allow you to call a telephone number and have your voicemail transcribed into a text message or email and sent to the recipient.  Of course, if you elect to try this out, you may want to invest in a Bluetooth if you do not already have one.  The Bluetooth makes this undertaking infinitely easier. 

There are a number of websites that offer voice-to-text services, such as www.youmail.com, www.nuance.com and www.jott.com, so if this is a feature that interests you, then I encourage you to check it out!

One of my favorite websites, which incorporates many of the tools I’ve outlined in this article, is Skype (www.skype.com).  This is an amazing service that can drastically reduce your personal and your firm’s long distance bill if used properly.  With Skype, you can set up free Internet conferencing with anyone around the world, participate in free video conferencing and take advantage of numerous other services for minimal cost.  Imagine having an hour long face-to-face conversation with your overseas client for free!  Now, imagine how impressed your client would be to learn that, in these financially trying times, you are looking to conserve resources and minimize costs.  That would undoubtedly endear you to your clients, and it instills confidence in your firm and could even result in more business from that client or through referrals in the future.  One never knows how far a little innovation can go when it comes to developing a competitive edge, which is why it is so important to stay on top of technological advancements and consider how those changes can better serve your practice.  (This would be a good time head to the DRI website and join me as a member of the technology substantive law committee!)

A friend of mine once told me that you can do it all, you just can’t do it all well. Well, with all due respect to my friend, I am not willing to give up so easily.  My single friends say I am the busiest person they know.  Of course, my married friends and I trade war stories and laugh about the insanity of it all.  How do we do it?  As for me, I am constantly looking for ways to maximize my billable day and minimize the amount of ‘dead time’ in any given day.  Make no mistake, though, if it’s a ‘class outside’ kind of day, you can catch me sitting in the courtyard of my favorite coffee house with my laptop plugged in and the sound of new age jazz playing softly in the background! 

Anyone attending last week's Sharing Success Seminar will understand that the title to this blog is not as boring as it seems. Take-Away #1: Be mindful of the "Wonderful/Detrimental Continuum" in communicating. Specifically, we learned on Thursday morning that our brains are hard-wired to listen to all of the elements of a list, provided the speaker enumerates the list in advance. This is particularly important for women lawyers, whether in the courtroom or the boardroom. The presentation on communication also encouraged the audience to 1) draw conclusions up front, 2) stop verbal multitasking, 3) stop repeating (repeatitis), 4) avoid expressing self-doubt, 5) be selective in using self-deprecating humor; what may be endearing in casual conversation is damaging in meetings and presentations, and 6) use active, singular voice.

Take-Away #2: Go dancing. Happiness seems to be an elusive concept, according to the seminar's first speaker on Thursday. And particularly for women lawyers. "Weird" principles of achieving happiness were identified, though: 1) align key life domains with temporal sweetspots (i.e., you may not be in the "good mom" sweet spot when you are rushing the kids out the door to meet the 7:30 a.m. bus and you are headed into rush hour traffic yourself, but you may be in the "good mom" sweet spot at 7:30 p.m. if you enjoy cooking dinner and this time is relaxing with your kids); 2) work on projects you love and eliminate depleting projects and people from your life; 3) lower expectations because "expectations-reality=happiness"; 4) create a reward system for tasks/projects completed; 5) carve out clear areas of incompetency (e.g., family finances, taking out the garbage, grocery shopping, planning vacations); 6) cultivate sticky memories (the vacation pictures remind you of a wonderful, relaxing respite, despite the reality of car sickness, getting lost, sunburns); and 7) improve your sense of humor. And if acquiring a sense of humor is daunting, go dancing.

T. Sky Woodward
Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice
swoodward@wcsr.com