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

Strategies
for Women
Attorneys for
Advancement
in Their
Practice
RECOMMENDED PRACTICES
There is no substitute for competence. Across the board, respondents to the DRI
Task Force survey in private practice, in the judiciary, and in corporate practice, cite
“good work, good work and good work,” “be responsive and do solid, helpful work
for the client,” “do high quality legal work” as prerequisites for women attorneys to
advance in the practice of law. Even as women attorneys develop competence in the
substantive areas in which they practice, their progress as trial lawyers and advancement
in the profession hinge upon developing competence in the courtroom, in marketing
and client development, and in traversing the office politics of their law firms.
Developing Competence as a Trial Lawyer
Young lawyers, female and male, rarely have the same opportunities to try civil cases
early in their careers as did lawyers who entered the practice 20 or more years ago. 7
That said, women who have a strong interest in litigation can find numerous opportunities
to train and practice litigation skills so that they can develop into competent
and worthy trial lawyers.
One of the most obvious opportunities, and, according to judges, one of the most
overlooked, is for women lawyers to go to court “even if it is just to come along to
watch and learn,” as one judge said, “take them into the courtroom as often as possible.”
Another judge reports, “it does not appear that there is any mentoring in most
firms—senior lawyers should invite younger attorneys to come to court even if they
can’t bill time.” Women who aspire to be trial lawyers should ask when attorneys in
their firms are going to court—whether to argue motions, participate in pre-trial
conferences, or try a case—and go along even if they cannot sit at counsel’s table.
In addition, many state and federal courts post their dockets and trial calendars on
the Internet. Young lawyers can, and should, take advantage of opportunities to sit in
on civil and criminal cases to see how it is done, which procedures or behaviors are
favored in a given judge’s courtroom, and to evaluate whether the lawyer she is observing
is effective.
Women attorneys interested in litigation should pursue opportunities to serve as
second chair in depositions and trials, and then through demonstrated competence,
move to first-chairing depositions and trying cases with the help of experienced secondchair
counsel. As the younger attorney becomes more competent, her partners should
commend her to clients so that the clients know that the young woman assigned to
their case is up to the task.
7 A January 2004 report prepared for the American Bar Association Section of Litigation
found that from 1962 to 2002 the number of federal civil cases resolved by trial plunged
from 11 percent of the total to 1.8 percent. Marc Galanter, The Vanishing Trial. The
report will also appear in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies in November 2004.
20 A Career in the Courtroom: A Different Model for the Success of Women Who Try Cases