Life at the Bar LLC Blog

By Julie A. Fleming December 19, 2007 2 Comments

 Empowerment and Leadership: Tried and True Methods for Women Lawyers is a 50-page booklet produced by the ABA Commission of Women in the Profession based on focus groups interviews with  lawyers in over 100 law firms and corporations.  The project was clearly directed toward prescribing steps to correct the gaping discrepancy between female representation in law schools (50%) and that the number of female partners in large law firms (13% in 1995, rising to 17% as of 2005, according to a much-discussed New York Times article) rather than toward examining why that discrepancy exists.  Lean, terse, and directive, the project hits its mark.

Published in 2003, the book offers best practices in the following areas:

*  Culture
*  Marketing
*  Internal women’s groups
*  Networking
*  Work assignments
*  Management participation
*  Compensation

The Best Practices Summary (5 pages) lists concrete steps that firms (and, often, corporations with legal staff) can implement to provide a setting and structure that supports women in advancing their legal careers.  The recommendations can be boiled down into a few overarching principles:

1.  Create a women’s initiative and/or diversity plan that has buy-in from top management.  Set policies and procedures to encourage promotion of women and work/life integration, and survey to determine how effective these programs are.

2.  Make sure women are exposed to the firm’s clients, to other lawyers in the firm (for cross-selling and referrals), and to networking and marketing events that are successful for business development.

3.  Create mentoring groups and other opportunities for women to interact with other women in the firm.

4.  Design a system to ensure that work is fairly assigned and measure group leaders’ success in part based on the career development of the lawyers they supervise.

5.  Ensure that women have a seat on management and compensation committees.

For women seeking professional advancement, the tips may be summaried as follows:

1.  Be assertive.  Ask for the work you want, the firm leadership positions you desire, the marketing opportunities and client exposure necessary to advance.

2.  Be aware.  Know who’s in power, know who’s handling which clients, and know what the situation is for other women in your firm/practice area/geographic area.

3.  Develop mentors who can guide you on your career path.

4.  Be assertive and ask for what you need and want.  (Repetition for emphasis of key theme.)

This book offers a wealth of resources for those seeking action items and concrete steps that can be implemented.  If you’re looking for more of a discussion of themes, experiences, and findings, you will likely want something beyond this book; even so, I’d recommend that any woman in practice or in law school (and every law firm leader of either gender) read Empowerment and Leadership.  It’s even available as a PDF download, so you could skim it tonight.   For $25 and maybe an hour and a half, it’s a no-lose proposition. �

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Book reviews, Women and the law

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