Challenge and Change

There is not a single statistic that says that women lawyers have achieved equality in terms of pay, position, power, or prestige ' not one. From its roots in 1987 as the brainchild of ABA President Robert MacCrate and its first chair, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession has worked to assess the status of women lawyers and support efforts to help them achieve full and equal participation and opportunities in the legal profession. The Commission's lodestar has been that organized and concerted efforts could make a difference in combating the causes and effects of gender bias, stereotypes, harassment, and inhospitable work environments that have impeded the professional careers and aspirations of women in the bar.

The Commission has undertaken these efforts over the years against a backdrop of continuing gender discrimination in many aspects of society and business. Women still earn, on average, only 72 cents for every dollar a man earns, and a man with a college degree will make an average of $15,000 more per year than a similarly situated woman. Many opportunities in sports, the professions, and other industries are still unreachable for women, regardless of their talent or potential. The pace of progress in too many fields has been glacial.

Nevertheless, the Commission's work product over the past 16 years is nothing short of staggering. For example, the Commission has:

• Published more than a dozen books, monographs, and other publications on the contemporary status of women in the bar, such as The Unfinished Agenda; Empowerment and Leadership: Tried and True Methods for Women Attorneys; Fair Measure: Toward Effective Attorney Evaluation; Balanced Lives; Sex-Based Harassment; Legal Progeny (child care benefits programs);The Burdens of Both, The Privileges of Neither (women of color); Elusive Equality (women in the legal academy); The Difference “Difference” Makes (leadership); and our quarterly magazine, Perspectives;
• Conducted three extensive sets of public hearings on the status of women in the profession (1988,1995, and 2003);
• Held numerous CLE programs over the years ' such as “How to Talk to a Sexist” to establishing child care programs, and to this year's upcoming program on “Women, Politics and Power”;
• Sponsored conferences addressing leadership and advancement of women lawyers in California, Chicago, Boston, and New York;
• Hosted the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement luncheons at ABA Annual Meetings, honoring outstanding women lawyers who have paved the way for other women.

Last year, we started a research project examining the experiences of women of color, a group clustered at the lowest rungs in every segment of the bar. This project will be unprecedented in its scope and impact. Another current initiative is an oral history aimed at illuminating the stories of women trailblazers in their respective states. Additionally, because we see that leadership is the driver to effect meaningful change, Commission members have targeted leadership issues, both on the individual and institutional levels.

The individual approach is perhaps best reflected in one of our signature, precedent-setting events this year: The Women in Law Leadership Academy, held in April in Chicago. The Academy was specifically designed in response to concerns raised by younger women lawyers who have faced difficulties in making their way in the profession and gaining the savvy and skills to advance within their firms or companies. It featured incandescent speakers in interactive formats who shared their accumulated knowledge and wisdom about the nature and practice of law.

What was distinctive about the Academy is that the participants were urged to assume a leadership attitude and strategic focus in order to take charge of their own careers and attain the fulfillment they deserve. For example, the keynote speakers, Christine Lagarde, Baker & McKenzie's chair, and Debora deHoyos, the managing partner of Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw, delivered insightful and inspirational speeches that laid out roadmaps for self-assessment, thoughtful action, and success. The response to the conference was overwhelmingly positive, and the entire experience was unforgettable for both speakers and attendees.

The Commission then took an institutional approach in a second key leadership conference. We tackled head-on the troubling issue of the dearth of women attorneys in leadership positions through an innovative, invitation-only summit for corporate general counsel and managing partners in May in New York. The exclusive invitation list allowed us to assemble in one room, for the first time ever, the power brokers who set the tone for the whole profession. We did this for just one purpose: to discuss how to break the existing logjam and accelerate the advancement of women to leadership posts. Co-sponsored by ABA President Dennis Archer and several ABA Sections and Divisions, this “Managing Partner and General Counsel Leadership Summit” drew over 200 heads of law firms and corporate legal departments from around the nation.

Summit keynoters included Jim Turley, CEO of Ernst & Young; Jeffrey Bleustein, CEO of Harley-Davidson; Ben Heineman, General Electric's Senior Vice President of Law and Public Affairs; and Chief Judge Judith Kaye of the New York Court of Appeals. They spoke forcefully about the business case for gender diversity and provided concrete examples of how to establish work environments that allow women to achieve success as leaders and stem the tide of attrition of talented women, while simultaneously noting that such a course materially contributes to the bottom line.

Twenty speakers who serve as general counsel to Fortune 500 companies then challenged the managing partners on panels and in the audience to promote more women internally, and ensure that women are represented on their outside counsel teams. Many of them promised that there will be intensified focus on diversity when it comes to selection and retention of outside counsel ' a sure sign that change is afoot. Rick Palmore at Sara Lee, Stacey Mobley at DuPont, James Potter at Del Monte, Paula Boggs from Starbucks, Guy Rounsaville at Visa International, Gloria Santona at McDonalds, Catherine Lamboley at Shell, and Michele Coleman-Mayes from Pitney-Bowes, to mention just a few, are already exerting leadership on diversity, both inside their law departments and externally in setting diversity expectations with respect to the outside law firms they use.

Moreover, the Summit was the first public announcement that a group of general counsel will leverage their buying power by pledging to take action consistent with the 1999 “Diversity in the Workplace ' A Statement of Principle” that 500 of them previously signed. Signatories to “A Call to Action for Diversity in the Legal Profession” will treat law firm diversity performance and progress as important factors in their decisions to hire or retain outside counsel. They intend to increase opportunities for firms that positively distinguish themselves and reduce or end relationships with firms that demonstrate “a lack of meaningful interest in being diverse.” As clients, they are seeking a transformational change in the profession and asserting their priorities convincingly. The Commission is pleased to assist proponents in distributing “A Call to Action” to corporations nationwide.

The significance of the deficiency of women lawyers in leadership roles cannot be overstated. The rapid influx of women into the profession in the past two decades ' such that they now comprise 29.3% of the bar and 49% of law school graduates ' is truly striking. There is now a critical mass of experienced and proven women attorneys throughout the profession. Yet while women constitute 48% of law firm associates, only 15.8% of law firm partners in the nation's 250 largest law firms are women, and a still tinier fraction ' less than 4% ' reach managing partner status. Women make up only 15% of the general counsel of the Fortune 500. The vast majority of law school deans are men, as are judges on the federal bench, though the numbers are better than they were a decade ago. One rare bright spot: fully 21 Supreme Court Chief Justices are female.

By 2010, at present rates of enrollment and graduation, 40% of the profession will be female. However, women are leaving the profession in greater percentages than men at every benchmarked level, according to the National Association of Law Placement (NALP), and often before they have become profitable. Nearly 100% of women of color left their firms over one eight-year period that NALP studied! One researcher, law professor Joan Williams, has conservatively estimated that it costs a firm $250,000 every time a 2nd year associate leaves. Given these realities, failure to address the glass ceiling and “sticky floor” obstacles that keep women from advancing as far as their merit and ambitions should take them will dearly cost the profession – and the individuals themselves. It makes little demographic or economic sense to allow this degree of attrition, disillusionment, and loss of talent to continue unabated.

The strategic solutions lie in erasing the stubborn and pervasive barriers in the career paths of women ' what I call the “Dirty Half Dozen”:

Societal stereotypes and biases against women persist, and in our profession, to a large extent, lawyer still means male. Women attorneys are too often mistaken for court reporters, courtroom clerks, secretaries, paralegals and assistants. They are frequently presumed to be incompetent, must continually prove themselves, are ignored in substantive conversations and often demeaned verbally. Women (especially women of color) do not meet the expectation of central casting for a lawyer, and are too rarely thought of when one is called upon to recommend a top lawyer. Recognizing the tenacity of these stereotypes as they exist in the profession, and consciously acting to dispel them through leadership and commitment, are essential goals. For starters, legal employers can announce as policy the importance of diversity and inclusiveness, reward those who achieve great diversity results, and insist that slates for leadership positions always include women. As the corporate adage holds, “what gets measured gets done.”

The prime legal career-building years are on a collision course with the biologically constraining child-rearing years. In our society, the principal responsibility for family care still rests squarely on women, and there is no rational basis for law firms and companies to ignore this reality. I don't refer to this as the “work/life balance” problem because there is little balance in most women's (and a great many men's) lives. Navigating between the Scylla and Charybdis of work and home subjects women to both blame and shame: blame because they are not giving enough to their employers, and shame because they are not giving enough to their families. Men escape this criticism; they get accolades for spending even a modest amount of time with the kids.

Thus, while more than 90% of legal employers have some form of alternate work schedules, and technology can be used effectively in those contexts to deliver fine service to clients, many women shy away from them. Why? To avoid the stigma that attaches with their use, as reflected in dead-end work assignments or assessments that they are not partner or leadership material because of their insufficient commitment to their careers. To change this paradigm, firms should strive for better work/life integration and de-stigmatize their flexible scheduling programs. The benefits include appealing to a growing number of men, who also seek greater balance, and saving money from reduced attrition, which companies like Deloitte & Touche and Ernst & Young have discovered can total in the millions of dollars.

Mentoring is unquestionably a key to success in the profession, but women repeatedly report that they lack mentors and champions to aid them in developing business, honing their legal skills, and mastering the “rules of the game.” Humans gravitate toward others that are most like themselves, so it is not surprising, in a male-dominated profession, that women have more difficulty finding mentors. But there are solutions worth emulating, such as the Ernst & Young and General Electric models of tailored, effective mentoring programs for women. Work by the Catalyst Organization also provides examples for turning this problem into a plus.

Denial of access to formal and informal professional, marketing, and social networks takes many forms. When women are excluded from important meetings and events with firm leaders or clients, or not considered or appointed to positions on key committees, what they lose are chances both to show how good they are to the people who count, and to enhance their legal and business generation skills. Outside the office, without equal opportunity and encouragement to develop civic, business, and social relationships, women are competitively disabled. We used to call this the “golf advantage” ' but it can just as well manifest itself in other activities that disproportionately screen out women. Yet this inequity is controllable, and can be overcome with affirmative steps to create a welcoming, inclusive climate ' for all employees.

In law firms, evaluation and compensation systems constitute a two-tiered barrier for women. First, the billable hour system puts an inordinate premium on time spent, not results achieved. Worse still, rewards at some firms are heavily based on time spent at the office, thereby escalating work/life conflicts. Second, performance evaluation systems often contain subtle, subjective elements of gender bias. Lingering stereotypes, weak mentoring and limited business development advice, and differences in male and female communication styles can negatively affect appraisals of women lawyers and depress their pay and promotional opportunities. (A recent study of attorney compensation by the Women Lawyers of Colorado reveals that women continue to trail men at all income levels in the profession.) Women can be hamstrung by narrow definitions of success and even narrower zones of acceptable behavior – the familiar struggle to avoid being labeled either “too tough”/”too masculine” or the equally damning “too passive”/”too emotional.” The good news is that it is within employers' own power to correct these inequities; resources such as the Commission's Fair Measure monograph can help.

Another serious hurdle is the lack of positive role models for young women attorneys. Generation Y lawyers are skeptical about following in the footsteps of senior women lawyers who appear to have sacrificed everything for their careers. In 2003, NALP reported that only 60% of women view partnership as an incentive, compared to 80% of men who see it as a strong motivator. Something happens ' or doesn't ' that stifles the interest of women, strong at the outset of their employment, and leads to an increasing number of premature departures. In response, the most successful firms and companies make it easy for senior women to serve as coaches and role models, and ensure they are tapped for visible leadership and governance posts to send an unmistakable message about inclusion.

In short, there will never be a better time to act than now. Mahatma Gandhi once said: “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” Gender equality is an imperative and can be achieved in our lifetime if we take strong, sustained, collaborative, and prompt action. Adopting a framework for change requires unwavering commitment from the top of the organization and recognition that progress toward diversity is a marathon, not a sprint. There are plenty of best practices already established. It's not about inventing new modes ' only developing purposeful strategies, implementing appropriately tailored solutions, and being accountable. If we apply our collective will to this task, we can bring about a categorical improvement in our profession and shape a culture of genuine equal opportunity and openness to diversity. We will all be the richer for it.

There is not a single statistic that says that women lawyers have achieved equality in terms of pay, position, power, or prestige ' not one. From its roots in 1987 as the brainchild of ABA President Robert MacCrate and its first chair, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession has worked to assess the status of women lawyers and support efforts to help them achieve full and equal participation and opportunities in the legal profession. The Commission's lodestar has been that organized and concerted efforts could make a difference in combating the causes and effects of gender bias, stereotypes, harassment, and inhospitable work environments that have impeded the professional careers and aspirations of women in the bar.

The Commission has undertaken these efforts over the years against a backdrop of continuing gender discrimination in many aspects of society and business. Women still earn, on average, only 72 cents for every dollar a man earns, and a man with a college degree will make an average of $15,000 more per year than a similarly situated woman. Many opportunities in sports, the professions, and other industries are still unreachable for women, regardless of their talent or potential. The pace of progress in too many fields has been glacial.

Nevertheless, the Commission's work product over the past 16 years is nothing short of staggering. For example, the Commission has:

• Published more than a dozen books, monographs, and other publications on the contemporary status of women in the bar, such as The Unfinished Agenda; Empowerment and Leadership: Tried and True Methods for Women Attorneys; Fair Measure: Toward Effective Attorney Evaluation; Balanced Lives; Sex-Based Harassment; Legal Progeny (child care benefits programs);The Burdens of Both, The Privileges of Neither (women of color); Elusive Equality (women in the legal academy); The Difference “Difference” Makes (leadership); and our quarterly magazine, Perspectives;
• Conducted three extensive sets of public hearings on the status of women in the profession (1988,1995, and 2003);
• Held numerous CLE programs over the years ' such as “How to Talk to a Sexist” to establishing child care programs, and to this year's upcoming program on “Women, Politics and Power”;
• Sponsored conferences addressing leadership and advancement of women lawyers in California, Chicago, Boston, and New York;
• Hosted the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement luncheons at ABA Annual Meetings, honoring outstanding women lawyers who have paved the way for other women.

Last year, we started a research project examining the experiences of women of color, a group clustered at the lowest rungs in every segment of the bar. This project will be unprecedented in its scope and impact. Another current initiative is an oral history aimed at illuminating the stories of women trailblazers in their respective states. Additionally, because we see that leadership is the driver to effect meaningful change, Commission members have targeted leadership issues, both on the individual and institutional levels.

The individual approach is perhaps best reflected in one of our signature, precedent-setting events this year: The Women in Law Leadership Academy, held in April in Chicago. The Academy was specifically designed in response to concerns raised by younger women lawyers who have faced difficulties in making their way in the profession and gaining the savvy and skills to advance within their firms or companies. It featured incandescent speakers in interactive formats who shared their accumulated knowledge and wisdom about the nature and practice of law.

What was distinctive about the Academy is that the participants were urged to assume a leadership attitude and strategic focus in order to take charge of their own careers and attain the fulfillment they deserve. For example, the keynote speakers, Christine Lagarde, Baker & McKenzie's chair, and Debora deHoyos, the managing partner of Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw, delivered insightful and inspirational speeches that laid out roadmaps for self-assessment, thoughtful action, and success. The response to the conference was overwhelmingly positive, and the entire experience was unforgettable for both speakers and attendees.

The Commission then took an institutional approach in a second key leadership conference. We tackled head-on the troubling issue of the dearth of women attorneys in leadership positions through an innovative, invitation-only summit for corporate general counsel and managing partners in May in New York. The exclusive invitation list allowed us to assemble in one room, for the first time ever, the power brokers who set the tone for the whole profession. We did this for just one purpose: to discuss how to break the existing logjam and accelerate the advancement of women to leadership posts. Co-sponsored by ABA President Dennis Archer and several ABA Sections and Divisions, this “Managing Partner and General Counsel Leadership Summit” drew over 200 heads of law firms and corporate legal departments from around the nation.

Summit keynoters included Jim Turley, CEO of Ernst & Young; Jeffrey Bleustein, CEO of Harley-Davidson; Ben Heineman, General Electric's Senior Vice President of Law and Public Affairs; and Chief Judge Judith Kaye of the New York Court of Appeals. They spoke forcefully about the business case for gender diversity and provided concrete examples of how to establish work environments that allow women to achieve success as leaders and stem the tide of attrition of talented women, while simultaneously noting that such a course materially contributes to the bottom line.

Twenty speakers who serve as general counsel to Fortune 500 companies then challenged the managing partners on panels and in the audience to promote more women internally, and ensure that women are represented on their outside counsel teams. Many of them promised that there will be intensified focus on diversity when it comes to selection and retention of outside counsel ' a sure sign that change is afoot. Rick Palmore at Sara Lee, Stacey Mobley at DuPont, James Potter at Del Monte, Paula Boggs from Starbucks, Guy Rounsaville at Visa International, Gloria Santona at McDonalds, Catherine Lamboley at Shell, and Michele Coleman-Mayes from Pitney-Bowes, to mention just a few, are already exerting leadership on diversity, both inside their law departments and externally in setting diversity expectations with respect to the outside law firms they use.

Moreover, the Summit was the first public announcement that a group of general counsel will leverage their buying power by pledging to take action consistent with the 1999 “Diversity in the Workplace ' A Statement of Principle” that 500 of them previously signed. Signatories to “A Call to Action for Diversity in the Legal Profession” will treat law firm diversity performance and progress as important factors in their decisions to hire or retain outside counsel. They intend to increase opportunities for firms that positively distinguish themselves and reduce or end relationships with firms that demonstrate “a lack of meaningful interest in being diverse.” As clients, they are seeking a transformational change in the profession and asserting their priorities convincingly. The Commission is pleased to assist proponents in distributing “A Call to Action” to corporations nationwide.

The significance of the deficiency of women lawyers in leadership roles cannot be overstated. The rapid influx of women into the profession in the past two decades ' such that they now comprise 29.3% of the bar and 49% of law school graduates ' is truly striking. There is now a critical mass of experienced and proven women attorneys throughout the profession. Yet while women constitute 48% of law firm associates, only 15.8% of law firm partners in the nation's 250 largest law firms are women, and a still tinier fraction ' less than 4% ' reach managing partner status. Women make up only 15% of the general counsel of the Fortune 500. The vast majority of law school deans are men, as are judges on the federal bench, though the numbers are better than they were a decade ago. One rare bright spot: fully 21 Supreme Court Chief Justices are female.

By 2010, at present rates of enrollment and graduation, 40% of the profession will be female. However, women are leaving the profession in greater percentages than men at every benchmarked level, according to the National Association of Law Placement (NALP), and often before they have become profitable. Nearly 100% of women of color left their firms over one eight-year period that NALP studied! One researcher, law professor Joan Williams, has conservatively estimated that it costs a firm $250,000 every time a 2nd year associate leaves. Given these realities, failure to address the glass ceiling and “sticky floor” obstacles that keep women from advancing as far as their merit and ambitions should take them will dearly cost the profession – and the individuals themselves. It makes little demographic or economic sense to allow this degree of attrition, disillusionment, and loss of talent to continue unabated.

The strategic solutions lie in erasing the stubborn and pervasive barriers in the career paths of women ' what I call the “Dirty Half Dozen”:

Societal stereotypes and biases against women persist, and in our profession, to a large extent, lawyer still means male. Women attorneys are too often mistaken for court reporters, courtroom clerks, secretaries, paralegals and assistants. They are frequently presumed to be incompetent, must continually prove themselves, are ignored in substantive conversations and often demeaned verbally. Women (especially women of color) do not meet the expectation of central casting for a lawyer, and are too rarely thought of when one is called upon to recommend a top lawyer. Recognizing the tenacity of these stereotypes as they exist in the profession, and consciously acting to dispel them through leadership and commitment, are essential goals. For starters, legal employers can announce as policy the importance of diversity and inclusiveness, reward those who achieve great diversity results, and insist that slates for leadership positions always include women. As the corporate adage holds, “what gets measured gets done.”

The prime legal career-building years are on a collision course with the biologically constraining child-rearing years. In our society, the principal responsibility for family care still rests squarely on women, and there is no rational basis for law firms and companies to ignore this reality. I don't refer to this as the “work/life balance” problem because there is little balance in most women's (and a great many men's) lives. Navigating between the Scylla and Charybdis of work and home subjects women to both blame and shame: blame because they are not giving enough to their employers, and shame because they are not giving enough to their families. Men escape this criticism; they get accolades for spending even a modest amount of time with the kids.

Thus, while more than 90% of legal employers have some form of alternate work schedules, and technology can be used effectively in those contexts to deliver fine service to clients, many women shy away from them. Why? To avoid the stigma that attaches with their use, as reflected in dead-end work assignments or assessments that they are not partner or leadership material because of their insufficient commitment to their careers. To change this paradigm, firms should strive for better work/life integration and de-stigmatize their flexible scheduling programs. The benefits include appealing to a growing number of men, who also seek greater balance, and saving money from reduced attrition, which companies like Deloitte & Touche and Ernst & Young have discovered can total in the millions of dollars.

Mentoring is unquestionably a key to success in the profession, but women repeatedly report that they lack mentors and champions to aid them in developing business, honing their legal skills, and mastering the “rules of the game.” Humans gravitate toward others that are most like themselves, so it is not surprising, in a male-dominated profession, that women have more difficulty finding mentors. But there are solutions worth emulating, such as the Ernst & Young and General Electric models of tailored, effective mentoring programs for women. Work by the Catalyst Organization also provides examples for turning this problem into a plus.

Denial of access to formal and informal professional, marketing, and social networks takes many forms. When women are excluded from important meetings and events with firm leaders or clients, or not considered or appointed to positions on key committees, what they lose are chances both to show how good they are to the people who count, and to enhance their legal and business generation skills. Outside the office, without equal opportunity and encouragement to develop civic, business, and social relationships, women are competitively disabled. We used to call this the “golf advantage” ' but it can just as well manifest itself in other activities that disproportionately screen out women. Yet this inequity is controllable, and can be overcome with affirmative steps to create a welcoming, inclusive climate ' for all employees.

In law firms, evaluation and compensation systems constitute a two-tiered barrier for women. First, the billable hour system puts an inordinate premium on time spent, not results achieved. Worse still, rewards at some firms are heavily based on time spent at the office, thereby escalating work/life conflicts. Second, performance evaluation systems often contain subtle, subjective elements of gender bias. Lingering stereotypes, weak mentoring and limited business development advice, and differences in male and female communication styles can negatively affect appraisals of women lawyers and depress their pay and promotional opportunities. (A recent study of attorney compensation by the Women Lawyers of Colorado reveals that women continue to trail men at all income levels in the profession.) Women can be hamstrung by narrow definitions of success and even narrower zones of acceptable behavior – the familiar struggle to avoid being labeled either “too tough”/”too masculine” or the equally damning “too passive”/”too emotional.” The good news is that it is within employers' own power to correct these inequities; resources such as the Commission's Fair Measure monograph can help.

Another serious hurdle is the lack of positive role models for young women attorneys. Generation Y lawyers are skeptical about following in the footsteps of senior women lawyers who appear to have sacrificed everything for their careers. In 2003, NALP reported that only 60% of women view partnership as an incentive, compared to 80% of men who see it as a strong motivator. Something happens ' or doesn't ' that stifles the interest of women, strong at the outset of their employment, and leads to an increasing number of premature departures. In response, the most successful firms and companies make it easy for senior women to serve as coaches and role models, and ensure they are tapped for visible leadership and governance posts to send an unmistakable message about inclusion.

In short, there will never be a better time to act than now. Mahatma Gandhi once said: “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” Gender equality is an imperative and can be achieved in our lifetime if we take strong, sustained, collaborative, and prompt action. Adopting a framework for change requires unwavering commitment from the top of the organization and recognition that progress toward diversity is a marathon, not a sprint. There are plenty of best practices already established. It's not about inventing new modes ' only developing purposeful strategies, implementing appropriately tailored solutions, and being accountable. If we apply our collective will to this task, we can bring about a categorical improvement in our profession and shape a culture of genuine equal opportunity and openness to diversity. We will all be the richer for it.