Good evening, R&T readers! I’m so excited about this issue—because there have been so many good things written recently that are relevant to women lawyers. I hope you enjoy!

What Law Firms Are Doing to Mothers

Megan Gray wrote a beautiful article entitled Lawyer, Mother and the Dark Night of the Soul: What We Are Doing to Women at Law Firms. In it, Gray tells the story of how, after being a BigLaw corporate lawyer for 10 years—and being repeatedly told that it valued the retention of women—her BigLaw firm told her that they could not accommodate a request to work flexible hours. In fact, she was told that she would have “no value” to the firm is she worked 9am-5pm. Her feelings of betrayal after giving so much to her firm are powerful. The article concludes with her hopes:

In 2021 Gray wrote an article for the ABA Journal entitled How To Retain More Women in Law Firms. It also discusses her experience in BigLaw when she had her daughter. In that article she explains how, when her firm rejected her proposal to work fixed hours, she “carried the hurt like grief.” The questions she asks at the end of the article still seem ever-so-relevant today: “Are we willing to keep making progress only at the edges, moving the needle so faintly year after year without addressing what is really going on? When presented with a choice, will law firms continue to preserve their business model and the status quo, at the expense of losing women, along with their talents and unique perspectives?”

Editor-in-Chief Paul Hodkinson wrote a response [paywall] to Gray’s article, calling for law firms to do better, particularly given the dismal numbers of female equity partners in law firms. He notes that “to [Megan Gray], and many others like her, the firms say one thing about retaining women, but do another.”

A Big Law Firm Rolling Back Parental Leave

In seeming opposition to Megan Gray’s and Paul Hodkinson’s calls to action, DLA Piper recently announced, as reported in an Axios article, that it would reduce its parental leave offering from 18 weeks to 12. If a lawyer gives birth, she is eligible for an additional six weeks of medical leave. DLA Piper was quoted as saying “we need to strike a balance of providing our lawyers competitive benefits while also ensuring that the firm has proper coverage of client matters,” leaving the authors to ask what will happen to the professional paths of the women who take that leave.

BigLaw Real Estate Gender Diversity

Law360 published an article [paywall] looking at gender diversity in BigLaw real estate practices. It found that, among the 20 largest firms in the Law360 400, women on average accounted for roughly 38% of attorneys in global real estate practice groups. Perkins Coie led the way, with women making up 52% of its 54 global real estate lawyers. Under the heading “Female Leadership Abounds Regardless of Gender Diversity,” Law360 reported that among the 20 law firms, “most have at least one female lawyer in a firmwide real estate leadership position, and many have multiple women in such roles.” Abounds indeed.

Why Black Women Start Their Own Law Firms

The Daily Journal published an article [paywall] on why black women start their own law firms. The reasons aren’t surprising: autonomy, flexibility, and avoiding discrimination and harassment.

DEI and BigLaw

The fabulous Kate Reder Sheikh of Major, Lindsey & Africa wrote an article for Thomson Reuters about what the attacks on DEI might mean for BigLaw. She begins the article by noting a recent LinkedIn post by recruiter Bryson Malcolm, who noted that, in the most recent round of layoffs, overall associate headcount was reduced by about 15%, with white male headcount reduced 6.5% and person of color headcount reduced 21%. Sheikh suggests that firms have pipeline programs for students of color and other underrepresented groups to reach students as early as middle school. She also recommends that firms continue to have DE&I teams and robust strategies built into the institution.

Particularly if you’re an associate interested in working at a law firm, you should be following Kate on LinkedIn to get her many insights into the marketplace.

A Profile on Lisa Blatt

The Chicago Tribune published a tribute to Williams & Connolly’s Lisa Blatt, who argued her 50th case before the U.S. Supreme Court this month. The article credits her for adopting her own style and being who she is unapologetically. And it mentioned that Blatt is one of only a “handful” of women in private practice who regularly argue before the Supreme Court—a fact that has led her to call for greater diversity before the court.

Sexual Harassment at Work Parties

Stefan Stern wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian entitled The World Has Changed. So Why Do Businessmen Still Think They Can Harass Women At Work Parties? In the article, he notes (as I have) the regrettable necessity of conference codes of conduct which remind attendees to “be considerate and respectful to each other” and “refrain from any unacceptable conduct.”

Using Employee Trust to Measure Leadership Hurts Women

Michelle Travis prepared an article for Forbes exploring recent research showing that, when employers measure leadership performance by the degree of employee trust a manager has, doing so hurts women more than men. Employees trust all managers less after an interpersonal conflict, but employees trust women managers significantly less than they trust managers who are men after such a conflict.

While the researchers originally posited that the difference existed because employees expect women to be nicer than men, that hypothesis did not prove to be true. Instead, they found the difference to be due to a specific gender bias called the “agency” stereotype. Because exercising power is consistent with male agency stereotypes, it does not reduce employee trust. But because exercising power violates female agency stereotypes, that causes employees to trust women managers less.

The researchers therefore recommended that employers not measure leadership performance based on employee trust, and instead reward managers only for things over which they have control.

I found this interesting, but when I was supervising people I had a different hypothesis. When I had to deliver bad news to employees, I sensed that they were disappointed in me because I could not change the outcome. As one of very few women in leadership, I often felt they did not trust that I would advocate for them—and could do so successfully—with a bunch of men. (Little did they know what a pain in the ass I was behind closed doors!) While this research did not explore this issue, I’m curious if other women managers have experienced what I did.

Why Women Can’t Overwork Themselves Out of Workplace Inequality

Forbes published an “Editors’ Pick” article by Michelle Travis on why women can’t overwork themselves out of workplace inequality. In the article, she cites to a new study published last month in Social Psychology Quarterly that found that the American obsession with working long hours hurts women who do overwork, and women who don’t. The study showed that, even when a woman completes the same amount and quality of work in 40 hours as a man does in 60, the man will receive greater rewards. But, even when a woman overworks, men reap a significantly larger premium than women. In the study, evaluators tended to attribute men’s overwork to greater career commitment, while saying that women’s overwork was due in part to lower competence that required more hours to get the job done. The study’s authors therefore called for more objective performance measures than face time so that efficiency is appropriate valued.

Wouldn’t you love to see this study in a workplace that has, say, billable hours?

Developments in the Law

Two significant developments in the law that are relevant to women lawyers.

First, the Supreme Court held that workers bringing claims challenging job transfers as discriminatory did not need to establish that their pay or rank changed in order to establish discriminatory treatment under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The plaintiff in the case was a female police sergeant who alleged she was unlawfully transferred from the intelligence division to a less prestigious patrol position because she was a woman.

Second, the EEOC published its final rule and interpretive guidance for implementation of the Pregnancy Workers Fairness Act, 29 CFR Part 1636.

Women are Exhausted Because They Don’t Get Enough Rest

The Huffington Post published an article revealing that women are exhausted because they are getting far less rest than men. The so-called “rest gap”—along with the wealth gap and health gap—partially explains women’s unequal placement in society. The article explains that women typically get less rest because women tend to disregard their own needs for the needs of others. This is especially true for mothers.

More on the Women Leaving Goldman

Fortune published an article on the departure of Anne Marie Darling, a longtime executive who is leaving the investment bank after 25 years. “As leadership has said, we also need to lean in and continue to do more to elevate women to the highest levels of the firm.” Sound familiar, anyone?

More on Women Leaving Tech

Fortune published an article by Chelsey Glasson explaining why she’s leaving the tech industry. Glasson was pushed out of Google and eventually sued the company for pregnancy discrimination. While she has settled the lawsuit, she describes how “[t]he contrast between how many tech companies talk about diversity and inclusion and how they act internally has left me permanently jaded.” She also describes the difficulty of reconciling how such “altruistic” organizations that wanted to change the world for the better could also engage in despicable behavior towards women.

Ironically, Glasson plans to go to law school to represent employees in lawsuits. Maybe someone should talk to her. . . .

Wearing Sequins to Work?

The Wall Street Journal reports [paywall] that, in a decision “to be seen,” professional women are wearing more sequins to work. To be clear, women aren’t wearing sequins cocktail dresses: they are wearing sequin blazers, pencil skirts, and trousers. While I personally can’t deal with the scratching, this woman, whose photo appeared in the WSJ article, admittedly looks pretty cool:

So—any Comes Now readers wearing sequins to the office?

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