Volume 1 Issue 4 www.womenlegalmagazine.com June – August 2009 WHAT WHAT WOMEN WOMEN WANT WANT Best practice in gender diversity. PROFILE MASTERCLASS Asylum seekers, torture survivors and Men and women use body language trafficking. Reed Smith’s Jayne E. Fleming differently. Do you know what you on life as a human rights advocate. are saying?
Strategies for success: Part two Karen B. Kahn and John E. Mitchell open up the debate, on how firms can create an environment where women succeed, to male managing partners. T he absence of large numbers thriving, and yet they all acknowledged of the male managing partners included of women thriving in the legal that the profession needs to continue to achievements such as making equity profession is an issue much bemoaned change to fully utilise female lawyers. This partner, leading teams for key clients and in industry conferences, the media and article consolidates their input and adds a ascending to significant firm leadership within individual law firms. In the male voice to leadership in this area. positions. This view is consistent with a December 2008 issue of Women Legal , we commonly-held definition of success for interviewed female leaders, most of them male lawyers. There were, however, male Are female lawyers thriving? managing partners, to gain their views on None of the male managing partners managing partners who advocated for whether women were thriving in large thought that women as a group were success to encompass a new meaning. For law firms. Most responded that they were thriving in the legal profession. However, example, Richard Alexander, Arnold & thriving, but they did not necessarily feel they did note that things were getting Porter’s managing partner, believes that “it that women as a group were achieving better for women in the profession. is really important for us to think about the full potential of a legal career. These For example, David Gordon, managing how we define success – it is too narrow women suggested strategies to create partner of Latham & Watkins’ New Y ork to define it in terms of who makes law firm environments where women office, observed that the firm does a lot of partner. We need to be more expansive.” succeeding were the norm, not the lateral hiring and that “more than half the Alexander and other leaders have opened exception. Intrigued by their responses, laterals we are considering just so happen the door to evolving definitions of success and believing that solutions lay in the to be women – I think that demonstrates that may foreshadow changes in the actions of leaders from both genders, we that women occupy some marquee practice of law. decided to ask male managing partners positions in the profession”. Dave Baca, the same questions. We were curious to managing partner at Davis Wright Structural challenges inherent in the see what views men and women shared Tremaine, observed that his firm has “a legal industry and where they diverged in their response lot of women in very significant positions How the significant biological, cultural to this challenge. of authority from being at the top of and social differences between the genders We arranged interviews with around our pay scale to running our offices to play out in a legal profession originally 20 male leaders of firms ranging from a making up about half of the executive designed by men for male lawyers, is a specialty firm comprised of 150 lawyers committee”. In these and many other critical issue. With women now playing to international firms with thousands of examples, female lawyers are making an active and important role in the lawyers to a mix of regional and national noteworthy strides in the profession – profession, the traditional framework does firms with hundreds of employees. Each and there is still significant room for not serve the co-gendered workforce. of the male leaders ‘got’ it. No one improvement. The point of agreement The male managing partners identified thought that women were fully engaged among the male managing partners was key structural elements of the profession and fully utilised in the profession. Each the shared belief that women were doing that are deeply entrenched and impact of these firm leaders has had successes better in each of their firms than they had women considerably. and each faces continued challenges in in the past. For example, there is an ethos in maximising the contributions of, and the Throughout the interview process, we the law that one must be completely opportunities for, their female lawyers. asked what it meant for women to thrive dedicated to the profession. Gary Ropski, These male leaders all had examples in the legal profession, particularly in large Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione president, of women from their firms who were law firms. The definition implied by many observed “ the generation before me had 20 June – August 2009
SPECIAL FOCUS the idea that in order to be successful notes that “increasingly client challenges The fixed career path creates yet you had to demonstrate that the law and opportunities require complex another structural challenge for women. was the most important thing to you.” interdisciplinary approaches that require Making partner is the threshold to being This commitment was demonstrated by new and creative approaches from the considered an ‘expert’. All firms claim that having a near singular focus on practicing lawyers and a reliance on a broader their partners are experts in a particular law. Those who make this commitment variety of expertise than ever before.” area of the law. are respected and considered to be Some of the lawyers who contribute that The failure to achieve expert status good partners. Women who take time expertise will be in non-traditional roles. limits potential career growth, work off to pursue an alternative career, take Alston & Bird is working to build systems opportunities, compensation and more. care of a personal matter, raise a family that enable people to make contributions The current belief is that legal expertise or otherwise pursue a non-traditional in ways that would have been less likely is developed over a certain period of path are seen as less committed to the practice and to their firm. They are ‘tolerated’ and ‘endured’ by traditionalists Moving towards firm success and individual fulfillment, and ‘accommodated,’ ‘supported’ and requires a foundational understanding of the unique internal ‘helped’ by forward thinking firms that seek to broaden their talent pool. Neither resources that men and women each bring to the workplace. approach is likely to dramatically shift the way the profession utilises half of its available talent. However, change in the past. The title and status of the time that runs continuously and in an is possible. Ropski noted that “ our lawyer collaborating to solve these unbroken pattern from the time one firm lawyers have developed a positive challenges may become less important in first starts to practice law. Women who outlook that you can be a good lawyer, a the future. Harvey W . Freishtat, managing deviate from this path impair their ability valuable contributor and yet have other partner at McDermott Will & Emery, to achieve expert status and certainly responsibilities outside of the firm.” predicts that “[we] are going to be seeing delay ascending to the rank of partner if The fixation on total commitment reduced hours arrangements in the future they make it at all. Compounding this to the profession leads to a second and firms will increasingly need to adapt challenge is the widely held belief that structural barrier – the fixed and rigid work assignments to flexible schedules the experience (eight or more years at career path that worked for generations without any stigma attached.” If he is most firms) must be acquired ‘under fire’. of male lawyers does not work well for correct, that will provide many more Quite often, a woman who takes ten women. The linear, unbroken path from opportunities for women to contribute years to obtain the required eight years law school to associate to partner is to significant client matters regardless of of experience is seen as less competent sacrosanct in most law firms. Those who their partnership track or full time, part by her peers, because that experience was deviate from this path are often seen as time, or flex-time status. not earned in a continuous manner like less capable, less serious and less worthy. it was for the male partners. A woman Those who feel constrained by the linear who takes time out from the practice or expectation often leave their firm or who works an alternative schedule cannot the profession entirely. That tradition possibly earn her ‘chops’ under the same is now slowly changing. Many firms, challenging conditions faced by her including all of those interviewed for this male counterparts. article, have some level of experience (with varying degrees of success) with lawyers pursuing a non-traditional paths to partnership. One development that may change this traditional hierarchy is the growing realisation that client needs are not necessarily best met through the traditional model that focuses on partnership as the pinnacle of professional achievement. Richard Hays, managing partner at Alston & Bird, www w .womenlegalmagazine.com 21
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