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Advancing Women In The Law

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Freedom From Stereotypes

New York Law Journal
February 23, 2009

At a diversity and inclusion training session at a New York law firm, a group of senior and junior attorneys and staff were discussing a hypothetical: a woman lawyer who had just returned from maternity leave on a reduced-hours schedule was requesting more challenging assignments. Participants literally laughed at the notion that a new mother might experience any change in the quality of her work assignments. The outlook reflected by the participants was that perhaps lawyers in other, less enlightened offices might imagine that a new mother was less able or committed, but not in New York.

Onward! How Not to Let A Bad Review and An Absent Mentor Stop Your Progress

New York Law Journal Magazine
December 2008

I am a female mid-level associate at a large law firm and a graduate, Order of the Coif, from a top tier law school where I was on Law Review. I’ve been at this firm since graduation and have always received positive reviews, especially about my diligence and writing skills. I was thus stunned when, during this year’s formal review, I was informed that several partners saw me as lacking in confidence and needing to behave “more professionally.” A woman partner with whom I’ve become close has advised me that negative impressions are impossible to overcome so I’d better start contacting recruiters. Especially given the economy, I’m panicked. Am I really likely to get fired after so much positive feedback about my work product?

Jettison The Myth Of Individualism

The Complete Lawyer
November 2008

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
~ Maya Angelou

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

~ Dale Carnegie

As a new associate in a law firm, you’re undoubtedly trying to determine the most crucial survival rules. The message to meet your billable-hours requirements, triple-check your work and cultivate your legal skills are emblazoned in your brain. But if you heed only that advice, you’ll spend endless hours at your desk and fail at one of the two most important tasks you need to master to ensure a successful career. Second only to developing your technical expertise, you need to build your social capital.

Balancing Acts

Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles
October 2008

As an executive/career coach for women attorneys, the issue about which I’m most often asked is work/life balance. In fact, balance seems to be the most sought after yet elusive goal of the majority of lawyers these days. The increasingly competitive and global business environment, lean staffing, and the indestructible billable hour have changed the practice of law from a “jealous mistress” to an insatiable monster. And the omnipresent Blackberry has made the boundary between work and the rest of life indistinct, if not invisible.

What’s a woman attorney trying to have a life to do?

Coach's Corner: Self-Help

New York Lawyer
October 23, 2008

I am four months pregnant, have been at my current firm one year, and would like help figuring out the best way to try to make use of the firm's much-touted but little-used part-time policy when I return from maternity leave.

I wonder how your firm's part-time policy has received so much publicity without being utilized. In fact, Joan Williams and Cynthia Calvert of the Project for Attorney Retention (www.pardc.org) are adamant that a part-time or "balanced-hours" policy be evaluated based upon its usability; a low utilization rate may indicate that the policy is not very user-friendly or effective.