A Career in the Courtroom: A Different Model for the Success ... - DRI

Challenges
Faced by
Women
Advancing
in Law Firms
country she will not retain a woman attorney because of entrenched gender biases
that she perceived still exist in the court system in those areas. In contrast, many
women attorneys felt the courtroom was the one place where they would receive
equal treatment and being female often worked to their advantage.
These perceptions, and many others, were pervasive among those surveyed and
interviewed, both male and female. Although the legal profession has come a long way
in trying to eliminate gender-based inequality, if continued progress is to be made, perceptions
and stereotypes that create obstacles for women litigators must be acknowledged
and addressed. In the litigation practice, the differences between men and
women may be amplified because of the adversarial nature of the practice and the pressures
of the workplace. However, to truly achieve equality in the profession and level
the playing field, gender differences must be respected, accepted, and not demeaned.
Despite an ever-increasing number of women entering law schools and the private
practice of law, they continue to be a small percentage of law firm partners and an
even smaller percentage of law firm upper management. Although the DRI Task
Force survey and interviews did not specifically ask women what they believed to be
the cause of this phenomenon, the survey and interview results shed light on the reasons
why women continue to experience so little progress in this area.
The first and foremost reason articulated by many was a lack of effective mentoring
relationships, not only in learning legal skills but on other issues that have an impact
on one’s ability to advance, such as marketing and balancing lifestyles. Addressing issues
of mentoring, one interviewee commented that “many firms assign mentors based on
gender,” even though those assignments are not the best for and are not necessarily
conducive to the development of the attorney. 1 The net effect of such assignments is
that poor relationships develop and the female attorney is not positively viewed or
received by the other partners in the firm.
However, it is not just the inappropriate assignment of mentors that impacts
advancement in the firm. The very absence of female role models causes insecurity
among men and women. Women would like to have them, and do not. Men worry
about what to expect if there are too many.
Many survey participants expressed their belief that lack of flexibility—a resistance
to change—was an impediment to advancement in law firms. The lack of flexibility
was not only reflected in issues related to balancing family and the practice of law but
also in partnership selection criteria. Law firms could significantly increase the number
of women in their partnership and management ranks by re-examining the firm’s criteria
for partnership. For example, in law firms where trial work is the life’s blood of
the firm, it is not unusual to expect that those who aspire to partnership must first
1 Several interviewees commented that the assignment of young female attorneys to female
mentors may in some way be counter-productive because many females who have
moved into the ranks of partnership and management have had to endure significant
sacrifice in order to attain these goals. Having made such sacrifices, these individuals
were perceived to be less empathetic to the struggles and issues with which many
younger female trial lawyers are grappling.
12 A Career in the Courtroom: A Different Model for the Success of Women Who Try Cases