Challenge and Change

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.