The New York Times has a provocative story on the low number of women partners at large law firms. I’d be particularly interested in reader comments to this piece, as my own experience with large law firms is mostly limited to the fantasy world of the summer associate.
One interesting aspect of the the article is its suggestion that mega-firm partnership is a reliable mark of career success. Partners at large law firms certainly are highly paid, but is making partner at a mega-size firm really a sign of success? Based on the anecdotal evidence I have seen, the majority of associates at large law firms are pretty miserable and are looking to leave. This isn’t true for everyone, obviously: some people love their firms and their practices, and want to keep at it for the long run. But my sense is that it’s true often enough that it’s worth keeping in mind when you read the article.
When I think of the female associates who’ve worked here (in the smallish DC office of an AmLaw 100 firm) over the past 15 years, few have been driven out either by misery or sexism on the part of the firm/senior lawyers. Rather, they’ve relocated with husbands, or decided that after a second child (third in one case) that living on their husband’s salary is both possible and desirable. (The women we’ve hired are typically, but not always, married to professionals: doctors or lawyers. They’re not choosing a life of poverty by staying home, although they do take a significant financial hit).
Partnership may not be the be-all and end-all, but nobody wants to be told “no.” (Or, more to the point, ‘We’ve worked with you for nearly 10 years now, and we don’t want to be in business with you. Bye.’)
While I think that your observation that many recently hired associates of both sexes are miserable in law firms is true, it’s not the full explanation of the phenomenon discussed in the article.
I think that the article correctly addresses a number of relevant factors behind the low retention rate and shows quite clearly that’s it’s not a simple issue, nor is there a simple answer.
I do think that the accounting firm Deloite and Touche is onto something though. But, I don’t expect that law firms will be jumping onto the bandwagon anytime soon. Law firms are, as a general matter, archaic dinosaurs and slow to change.
I think that firms will change how they do business when the retention rates of associates of *both* sexes rapidly declines due to dissatisfaction with the lifestyle, which I predict will occur within the next 7-10 years. At that point, the firms will have to change, since they need associates, both to do the grunt work and to promote to partner, in order to survive.
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Without a narrower set than “all female law school graduates,” there’s no way to figure out whether there is a problem, much less how to solve it. I’d be more interested in how many women who start out like Ms. Plavel — knowing when they graduate that they want to be partners — end up derailed. I know too many students, both male and female, who already plan to work in government, or as corporate counsel, or work full time only until having children, to think that the partner track is as presumptive as this article seems to assume.
Here’s what I found puzzling about the article: There was no discussion of the role of law schools in preparing their graduates, male and female, for life in the law firm and law practice generally. Or, I should say, not preparing them. Career services offices put close to zero emphasis on training students to understand law firm dynamics. Don’t hold your breath, for example, waiting for a senior associate or a partner to show up to be a mentor, or to teach you how to build a professional network. Many law faculty don’t understand those dynamics themselves, and those that do spend even less time than CS staff sharing their wisdom with students. To be sure, law firms can do much more than they do in sharing “soft knowledge” about law firm culture with new hires, but they should work with law schools (and law schools should work with them) to make that knowledge accessible before graduation — not only to summers, but to everyone in the school.
I wrote a long post about this for Feminist Law Profs, then deleted it without posting. It had to do with the fact that so many men in law firms see women as “support staff” (since most of the support staff is female) and as “potential dating material” (since so many men in law firms date secretaries, paralegals, and junior-to-them female attorneys they work with), but then I realized how many people, including people I really like, I would be potentially offending and hurting, so I shut the heck up about it, even though it is probably relevant. Thank you and good night.
I think the truth is fairly straightforward: subtle sexism. Here are the views of someone who has been observed and been privy to the hiring and firing processes at fairly large firms and who has been part of the process of hiring lawyers for the government.
The major roadblocks for women flow from a sexist, frat boy or cowboy mentality in many large legal institutions. Here is something most senior partners and lawyers won’t acknowledge openly: the long hours routinely expected are nonsense. While during pushes long hours can be necessary, super long hours as a routine part of life in law firms is unnecessary, wasteful and harms the firms. It makes people less rounded, less able to focus and less able to do the job — it creates a meaningless “physical stamina” requirement for the practice of law. One can efficiently do the work needed of a serior associate or partner in 50-60 hours a week. The rest is face time and fluff or waste. Two of the finest lawyers I ever saw worked 50-60 hours a week, were acknowledged by their peers (outside their firms — internal politics make internal peer evaluations generally less reliable) as efficient, brilliant lawyers. They took their jobs seriously and were good — putting out more and better work product than their peers and dealing effectively with other lawyers and clients.
Neither made partner. One was an extremely aggressive and brilliant antitrust litigator, taking tough, aggressive positions in courts and with opponents. She was, however, unfailingly polite. Internally she was shy and polite to her colleagues. She did not make partner. Why? Well, she wasn’t sufficiently aggressive — meaning that she didn’t swagger around the office and spend excess hours B.S’ing at the office. Remember, there was no issue of her not doing her share and more or her success. It was lack of swagger and face time. She was perceived, because she was married and a mother, as less committed, despite the fact she actually DID more.
The other was (and is) a superior counselor and attorney. She worked long hours, but she too had a family. She took no more time for her family than some male associates, but when she did, it was seen as a lack of commitment. She was seen as tough, aggressive and good with clients (one of whom hired her after it learned she had been let go). I argued against letting her go, saying that it would set a bad example and that she was a superior lawyer — and highly productive. That position did not prevail.
I have seen similar things happen in government, when addressing potential promotions. Women must work harder, be objectively substantially betterland seem excessively committed — far beyond their male counterparts.
How do you solve it. Well, what got D&T to look at their practices was when a female partner sued the partnership. If a female lawyer, who is objectively superior gets passed over, were to sue one of the many firms where the culture I am describing exists, I believe she would win. She would lose many, many opportunities and hurt her legal career, however — which is why a half dozen women I know have chosen not to sue, despite what I thought was excellent evidence of discrimination.
Until a woman sues and wins against one of these firms, I fear you will see no change.
I think it’s very un-American of you to suggest that high pay is not a sign of success. I think that upwards of 90% of your fellow citizens see them as nearly completely synonymous.
I don’t necessarily think that partnership is a reliable mark of career success, and I agree that associate misery crosses gender lines. It’s possible that if firms “fix” some of these universal associate concerns – lack of mentoring, emphasis on billing – that more women will thrive in the law firm environment.
I do think, however, that there is a gender distinction to be made. Anecdotally, I know that both my law school class and law firm class were split almost evenly with respect to gender; not one female friend of mine from law school is still at a large law firm, and the gender divide at the firm is now about 90/10. The fact that I can’t come up with a common reason that these 50+ women decided that firm life wasn’t for them (I can think of only two or three who left to be full-time mothers) brings us back to the original question: if firms can’t identify why women in particular are leaving – and hiring and retaining female lawyers through partnership is their goal – then they’re not likely to come up with a solution anytime soon.
I’ve thought a lot about this question myself, and I don’t have any concrete answers either. So far, I’m not sure that those who have thought critically about this question have come up with anything other than broad, and possibly baseless, generalizations – for example, women don’t know how to ask for what they want – which, again, aren’t going to lead to a solution.
I’m starting my third year at a 300-attorney Wall Street firm. Of my summer class of thirty, sixteen were women. Of those, one did not pass the bar (third try), one had a nervous breakdown and quit lawyering, two found jobs in the “non-profit sector” one decamped to another firm after her affair with a married male partner became general knowledge and three moved to distant cities to join spouses (one of those went to a smaller firm, one to an in-house job and one planned to find a job when she got there). That’s 50% in a tad over two years.
I’m personally aware of three others who plan to quit after this year and one more who is four months pregnant and has doubts whether she’ll come back after she gives birth. At that rate, by the end of four years–only halfway to partner–all the women will be gone.
Of the fourteen men in my summer class, precisely one has left to take a lateral position at another firm in Biglaw.
At that rate, when we finish our 10th year and are either made or not (still haven’t figured out what happens to people who stick it out but don’t make partner) there will still be nine men from my class left (and the other five will be in line at other big firms).
Now my experience may or may not be typical, but assuming for a moment that it is, it’s awfully hard to make the case that institutional sexism is responsible for the exodus of soooo many more women than men in the first two years.
Baby lawyers are essentially drones. They’re chained to their desks and treated like crap–so much like crap that it’s hard to imagine any variations therein. Discrimination, after all, requires that the discriminated-against be treated worse than the norm.
Higher up the line, when there are really differences in opportunities, responsibilities, etc., I can buy that discrimination is possible, but if my firm’s anything like typical (and anecdotal evidence from friends elsewhere suggests it is), there will be precious few women left by the time it’s possible to discriminate agaisnt them to find out.
So, my guess is that most female lawyers (like most male lawyers) are shocked out of their shoes by how generally crappy the life of a biglaw associate really is. Unlike their male counterparts, however, female associates enjoy societal expectations and institutions (like marriage) that make the option of bailing far more attractive. Many of my male classmates already have families and mortgages, and not one feels “quitting work and staying at home with the kids” or even “working part-time” is an option. All four of the married women in my class see their family as a reason to quit–not as a obstacle to doing so. So while the women are calculating exit strategies, the men are buying lotto tickets and otherwise gutting it out.
One observation as an afterthought: Kristen suggests that the gender divide in law firms requires a “solution.” Provided that the gap isn’t caused by unlawful discrimination, it’s not clear to me that this disparity is a problem. It may well be that a higher proportion of women than men dislike working in big firms. In a free society, shouldn’t their expression of that preference be exhalted rather than “solved?”
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I don’t know that I’m the one who identified the need for a solution – the article suggests that the legal community itself is already looking for one. My point was that the nature of the problem still seems very much in question, and lostingotham’s comment suggests the same – halfway to partnership, the men are still there, but the females have all departed, for a variety of reasons. If, as the Howrey partner in the article suggests, the firms want more retention of female attorneys, firms need to attack the problem at the (in my opinion, as yet unidentified) core. In my experience, it’s not always child care that drives the women away, and family support or mortgage payments that makes the men stay.
Partners at large law firms certainly are highly paid, but is making partner at a mega-size firm really a sign of success?
On its own terms, sure. But making partner at the largest firms is no guarantee that one will be a successful partner (i.e., one who brings in substantial business). At the largest firms, associates are up for partner long before anyone can know this — a change from not that many years ago. The lot of a junior partner is not all that different from the lot of an associate, and previous commentors have explained how unhappy that can be. From my limited perspective, many of the most talented lawyers opt out of this scheme to find some other way to get better work sooner, leaving their more risk-averse colleagues to stay at the large firms.
I’d like to point out that lostingotham’s description of first – fourth year male and female associates making very different choices (which rings very true to me from what I hear from lawyers a couple years ahead of me, I’m clerking) does not necessarily mean that discrimination is not occurring. It may or may not be _unlawful_ discrimination, but lostingotham’s own post suggests that male and female associates perceive themselves to face significantly different options. Male associates who may not be super-happy at their firms feel their familial role is an impediment to leaving the firm, while female associates who may be relatively happy with their work life see their familial role as a reason to leave. To me, it does not seem likely that the disparity in these men and women’s situation is entirely of their choosing. Also, the number of women who leave in order to “follow a spouse” does seem to far out-strip the number of men who do so. Those decisions aren’t made in a vacuum.
I would be interested in learning whether retention rates for female lawyers at biglaw differs between transactional and litigation. More specifically, I wonder if male and female litigators leave at the same rate, while female transactional lawyers leave in greater numbers.
My (limited) experience suggests that transactional work requires a lot more face time and “schmoozing” than does litigation, offering more opportunity for frat boy prejudice.
Alternatively, transactional lawyers who leave the law tend to become business people; a career move that is often in line with the person’s actual career aspirations and is in no way a “step down.” Are female transactional lawyers who leave the law going into business, and leaving their male compatriots to toil at the firm?
One additional line of thought I’d like to address is partly based on Emily’s post. I do think certain forms of discrimination absolutely exist in these almost universally male (and old rich and white, usually?) run firms, just like it exists in so much of the rest of society. But I also think male family members are part of the problem. Many (probably more than 50%) of the women who leave these big firms do so for a reason somehow related to her family, either her spouse or her kids. I guess I don’t understand why this category of women doesn’t make it more clear to their husbands that they would like to remain at that firm or at another firm, etc. Do women take on more of the expectation of family life than they should have to? I’m a young single guy, still in law school, and I’m the last one to pretend that he understands anything about marriage, dating, etc. But I don’t hear women (or men, but I unfortunately expect silence from men) talking honestly among themselves and to their spouses/significant others about career expectations. Men will never know unless you forcefully tell us. From my view, women have SO much persuasive power when they choose to exercise it. And I wonder why it isn’t (justifiably) exercised here? Any thoughts? It can’t be the case that married men and women universally stop talking to each other! (Mine were divorced, so I guess that leans towards a yes answer…) Do the women feel afraid or coerced? If so, maybe there are bigger problems to address than them not sticking around long enough to make partner?
Emily’s point is well taken. By “institutional sexism,” I intended “sexism on the part of the firm.” Surely other institutions–marriage, for example–practice their own brands of sexism for better or for worse (pardon the pun). But surely it is and should be beyond the scope of an employer’s responsibility to reform its employees’ marriages.
I suppose my point is this: from where I sit, it appears that big law firms have done about all should do to accomodate female lawyers. We’re at the point were the most plausible reason that more women don’t make partner is that very few women–for reasons that are external to the firm and, in a large part, of those womens’ own choosing–opt to put in the hours and the effort.
I really don’t believe what I am seeing here. Yes, there are differences between men and women in the choices they make. But the frat boy mentality that the Drone and I write about is a HUGE impediment to this business. Let me be blunt. Law firms SAY they are accomodating women. But the unfortunate fact is the “face time” (it is just as bad in litigation, just expresses itself differently) and cultural issues operate strongly against women in the law — and against many superior, productive men.
There seems to be a real disconnect from the reality of promotion and what people claim they do. In modern, big firm law, there are stars, but you really can’t know who the real legal stars are — and most of the time, it is not who makes the best salespeople. Because the “effort” and “quality” components of the law seem subjective (they are far less subjective than most believe), firms have a great deal of leeway to disparage those who “don’t make it.” But many of the most profitable and successful practices have been established by those who didn’t make it. Further, if you can get candid conversations with partners at major firms, you will learn how rawly political many promotion decisions are — and how little they have to do with comparative merit. This is because law is still, largely, a closed society. Until that society is forced to open up, have more reasonable and objective standards put upon its work and quality, and view itself as selling product, not time, women and others who don’t fit the mold, who don’t play all the games will lose even if they are, by all criteria, better lawyers.
I have a slight, though perhaps not overall disagreement with MJS; I have definitely observed frat boy prejudice (at least in transactional), and there are relatively few women partners. It’s hard to imagine that this is purely coincidental.
My question is more along these lines: In a big law firm, I think that most people leave long before they are eligible for partner (i.e. within 4 years); and I think that the type of work that young associates do in large-scale civil litigation is socially isolated: You’re pretty much doing doc review, supervising doc review, making deposition binders, conducting legal research, maybe deposite somebody or write a motion once in a while if you’re lucky. You have to bill a lot of hours, but it isn’t really “face time”, because you’re rarely face-to-face with anybody; they just want your bill and your work product. All in all, it isn’t that fulfilling, but I’m not sure how much opportunity this lower-level civil litigation work presents for bias to operate. This is in sharp contrast, I think, to the routines associated with transactional work. (e.g. sitting around conference calls, etc.)
But my experience is limited, and I’d be interested to hear if others disagree.
Further, if you can get candid conversations with partners at major firms, you will learn how rawly political many promotion decisions are — and how little they have to do with comparative merit. This is because law is still, largely, a closed society.
I don’t disagree with the first sentence, but something is missing here. If law firms could figure out which associates would, in the long run, make the best partners, that determination would be dispositive, or nearly so. I won’t deny that all sorts of other factors enter into the mix, but I don’t think it’s because big firms are irrational. They’re in a competitive business, and are well aware of it. Their problem is that they can’t tell which associates will, in the long run, bring in business (per my post above). These decisions become political because of this vacuum.
No doubt that firm politics works to disadvantage women, who are less likely to find the sort of relationships with mentors which help one get ahead.
(Of course, all of this is an oversimplification.)
First of all, I would argue that litigation requires just as much work as transactional law-it’s just different. There are court imposed deadlines that change at the judge’s whim. Opposing counsel serves unexpected motions and reply papers which require immediate response. Trials for which one has prepared for weeks for are cancelled unexpectedly when a judge decides to go fishing, etc., etc.
More importantly, I completely disagree with lostingohtam’s comments across the board. I mean no disrespect when I say that his perspective is, quite frankly, a huge part of the problem. The general tenor of his comments suggests that women can’t hack it–that women are weaker, frailer, more likely to “give” up and he seems to feel that women have more choices than men. Women attorneys don’t have more choices–educated *couples* have more choices. All of his assumptions couldn’t be further from the truth and serve to oversimplify a complex issue.
As to Haynesie’s inquiry, once a working couple has kids, the couple can either 1) continue to work and choose to pay someone to care for their kids and their home or 2) find an alternate situation that works best for the family, including one partner staying at home f/t, both partners scaling back, or one partner working p/t and either hiring child care during the hours that s/he works or working on the days and nights that the other partner is off from work.
With women attorneys, many of whom statistically marry equally educated men, the couple has to determine what route to take. And if they choose to scale back one person’s hours, economic factors come into play, along with any number of issues. Mnay times, given the high cost of day care, it makes more economic sense in the short run for one partner to stop working or scale back, and it’s just a matter of deciding who should do it. I personally know a number of men (my husband included), some of whom are attorneys, that have assumed primary child care duties for a portion of their children’s childhood.
And, while some men aren’t willing to help out at home/leave their jobs, etc., that’s not the prevailing reason that more women than men opt out of law firm life. There are any number of factors, not the least of which is the subtle discrimination that many women feel that they face on a daily basis at work.
As an aside, Opinionistas.com has a great post on this topic. She does a great job framing the issue and describing the obstacles that women face.
I’m not arguing that a grunt litigator is allowed to bill less than a transactional lawyer; only that the type of litigation grunt work is less susceptible to subtle prejudice because it is conducted in relatively greater social isolation. (At least at the really big firms.)
So my hypothesis is that if subtle prejudice at big firms is primarily responsible for female attorneys leaving (as opposed to sexism in marriage; preferable career opportunities elsewhere (including non-law), etc.), then one should see a lower retention rate among female transactional attorneys than female litigators. (at least in the first few years.) But again, it’s just a hypothesis, based on limited experience.
Drone, the subtle sexism that works against women in litigation is just about the same as for women in transactional work. However, in the 60s and 70s, some firms did give women in litigation somewhat more leeway than women in transactional settings. That leeway ended, and arguably was reversed in the late eighties and nineties, as more partners spent more time at the office and expected more “at their beck and call” than they had earlier. I think you will see that women have done relatively better over the past several years in corporate law than in litigation. I know that is the case at a number of firms.