Is it possible to balance a legal career with any kind of personal life? Our Hot Topic roundup gives it a shot.
Why do women feel dissatisfied? The Harvard Center for Work-Life Policy study found that only 20 percent of highly qualified female lawyers cited “a powerful position” as a very important career goal. Yet the percentage of women who said that “helping others” or “improving society” was one of the most important factors in picking a career was double that of men. Thus, if women feel the client work they are tackling is not advancing a greater good, they may indeed be less satisfied with their jobs, prompting them to depart sooner.
Women also may be more apt to play down their abilities and accomplishments than their male counterparts. A study undertaken by Harvard Law School revealed that 33 percent of male students considered themselves in the top 20 percent of their class in legal reasoning while only 15 percent of the women did. Keep in mind that this is not how the law students were actually ranked but rather how they perceived themselves. Other studies have shown that women are more likely to share credit for a completed project than men. As a result, supervising partners may erroneously perceive that a male associate is actually contributing more to a project’s success and worthy of more responsibility.
The issues surrounding retention of top female associates are admittedly complex. But it seems apparent that these factors help shape how women associates interact in the law firm environment. If they are less likely to view themselves as top performers or take full credit for their work, they are less likely to be singled out for exciting, cutting-edge assignments. And it’s the cutting-edge, high-profile work that usually attracts the attention of firm management and leads to partnership promotions.
These issues are at the heart of why some firms have embraced women’s networks as well as other retention and development tools geared specifically for women.
White & Case has a strong model that includes business development, alumni relations, peer support, networking and career development. Our program consists of a national steering committee with a mandate from top management to address the main underlying issues or barriers to women’s success. The program also includes a women’s network that helps individual offices bring together female associates, partners, alums and clients in a supportive environment to interact, talk about issues of common concerns and offer speakers and seminars on topics that assist in the development and advancement of women associates.
About a year ago, we held a national retreat for all of our senior female associates. The two-day event held in New York brought together female associates from all our U.S. offices, allowing the lawyers to strengthen current relationships and forge new ones. In addition to roundtable discussions, workshop panels and networking opportunities, a reception and dinner, which was attended by our entire worldwide management board, took place to reinforce the importance of this initiative to our organization and provide the firm’s female associates an opportunity to interact with the firm’s top leaders.
Just as there’s rarely one simple solution to a complex legal problem, there’s no easy answer on how to increase the number of women partners. What we do know, though, is that simply hiring an entering associate class that is half women isn’t getting us where we need to be. Instead, we need to continue to find solutions that meaningfully increase the number of women who stay in the running for partnership. Fifty percent of the talent pool — and, by definition, the future of law firms — depends on it.
Karen Asner is a commercial litigator and an administrative partner at White & Case in New York City.
