Hello, Comes Now readers! Welcome to What I’m Reading and Thinking, which is fast becoming my favorite part of writing Comes Now. If you are reading things that you think readers of this newsletter would also enjoy, please share them with me.

What the SG’s Office is Doing Right

In my last issue I described a recent article showing that, while less 20% of arguments delivered before U.S. Supreme Court were made by women, the numbers were considerably better at the Solicitor General’s office. Law360 [paywall] published a follow-up article written by Sarah Zhu, Joanne Johnson, and Sherry Zhang on how legal employers can model their diversity efforts on what the SGO is doing. The authors say that, first, government positions often offer better work-life flexibility than equivalent positions in the private sector. When that balance is coupled with the prestige of the SGO, such positions become attractive to high-quality candidates. Second, the SGO generally allows the lawyer who writes the briefs to argue before the Court. This stands in contrast to private practice, where arguments are typically given to the most senior and experienced lawyers—who are predominantly male. Third, and finally, the authors note that the SGO has made efforts to hire from diverse backgrounds.

Women’s Representation on Certain BigLaw Deals Improving

According to a new paper published by the University of Virginia School of Law, the five-member deal teams that negotiate big deals at BigLaw firms are now nearly twice as likely to include women than they were 10 years ago. In 2023, 78% of those teams contained a woman, while only 42% of those teams did in 2013. One out of every five of the 2023 teams was led by a woman. The report also found that women are more likely than men to make such teams as an associate. Based on the finding, the report concludes that “the next generation of women partners will surpass the current generation,” but I’m not sure that’s the only conclusion to be drawn from the observation. It could be that BigLaw firms are engaging in tokenism by placing female associates on a team. This seems possible since, as shown in the chart below, the report also found that women were most likely to appear as the fifth name on the five-member deal teams surveyed.

The report only analyzed deals conducted by six law firms—Cravath, Swaine & Moore; Hunton Andrews Kurth; Paul Weiss; Shearman & Sterling; Sullivan & Cromwell; and White & Case—so larger generalizations about what’s happening in BigLaw are difficult to make.

Finally, although the subject was only discussed at the conclusion of the paper and was not the paper’s focus, the authors did find that there were not such improvements in representation of Black lawyers on BigLaw deal teams.

Bullying in BigLaw

Law360 Pulse [paywall] published an article entitled “Is BigLaw Ready to Talk About Its Bullying Problem?” The question emerged from an email that surfaced in Gita Sankano’s gender discrimination lawsuit against Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders, where a partner chastised Sankano by saying: “This is very basic, elementary communication. … This is daily required functioning.” According to the article, the email generated a lively discussion on X regarding whether the tone of the email was unacceptable, or whether it instead just reflected the way things are in BigLaw. The article talks about how social media has allowed attorneys within BigLaw to discuss incidences like this so that the profession can have broader discussions about what is permissible in our workplaces.

The Power of Being The Only

Fast Company had an interesting article about the “hidden power” of being “the only” in the room, a phenomenon frequently experienced by women lawyers, particularly senior-level ones. The author, Porter Braswell, talks about transforming his conversations by coming from them not as a token, but as an expert about his unique experiences, so that he could “immediately reverse[] the power dynamic in the room.” He candidly acknowledges this approach as a coping mechanism rather than a solution, and makes clear that “one of the most important antidotes in professional environments where people can feel like ‘the only’ is to hire more diverse leadership.”

And for fun . . .

Because not everything I read is so serious, I thought I’d pass along a recommendation of a novel. I recently finished The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon. It’s a historical murder mystery inspired by the diary of Martha Ballard, an 18th-century midwife. It’s a compelling story with top-notch writing, and plenty of feminist undertones. If you need something to take you away for awhile, enjoy!

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