Thursday issues going forward

In order to create a more regular writing schedule, I’ve decided to experiment with a structure where I write one issue a week (usually on Tuesday) on a single topic and then write a second issue (usually on Thursday) where I talk about things I’ve been reading that may be relevant to women lawyers. This will be the first of my Thursday posts. I may skip the Thursday post during weeks where there’s not much to talk about. Let me know what you think! And, if you find articles you think I should share, please send them along.

The ABA’s New Report on the Legal Careers of Parents and Childgivers

As a timely follow-up to my most recent newsletter, the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession has issued a new 158-page report entitled Legal Careers of Parents and Child Caregivers - Results and Best Practices From a National Study of the Legal Profession. The report contains the results of a survey of over 8,000 respondents that was then analyzed by ten focus groups to come up with recommendations. I’ll write more about this in further detail later, but it won’t surprise you that the report describes a Motherhood Penalty in the legal profession, and concludes:

It also won’t surprise you that, after family health insurance, the number one policy that the respondents believed would be supportive of mothers was the ability to work flexible hours.

You’ll particularly want to read the second part of the report with the results of the focus groups to hear the voices of individual women interviewed.

National Association of Women Lawyers plans to probe the reasons women lawyers aren’t advancing

In an article in the Washington Business Review, authors from the National Association of Women Lawyers state that the Association is probing the reasons for the lack of women advancement in law firms, as reported in its 2021 Survey Report on the Promotion and Retention of Women in Law Firms. Specifically, the Association has plans to “dig deeper into identifying the potential reasons” for the results found in its Survey Report in order to “focus our attention less on documenting the numbers per se and more on identifying what the legal profession can do—and what we need to know more about—in order to address key barriers to the advancement for underrepresented groups, including women.” The authors report that this probe will include an analysis of unconscious bias. In addition, the Association is conducting a survey of women lawyers serving in an in-house role, to determine whether anecdotal stories suggesting things are better in-house are, in fact, true. Those of you who are or have worked in-house, what say you? Is the grass greener on the other side?

Women of Iceland Go On Strike

As reported in the New York Times (as well as many other places), women and nonbinary people in Iceland went on strike on Tuesday to protest workplace inequality. The action is pretty remarkable since, among developed countries, Iceland is far ahead in terms of gender equality. (For a great book that discusses many of Iceland’s cultural differences, check out Secrets of the Sprakkhar: Iceland’s Extraordinary Women and How They Are Changing the World by Eliza Reid, First Lady of Iceland.) This the seventh time Iceland has held such a strike, although it’s only the second time the strike has been a full day. The last full-day strike, in 1975, resulted in schools and theaters shuttering and the cancellation of flights, since most of the flight attendants were women. Can you imagine if this could happen in the U.S.?

A few things from women who aren’t lawyers

• The Seattle Times published an article on a book by a former Amazon manager that describes a pretty negative workplace for women. Based on the article, the book seems to contain themes similar to the ones I’ve written about. I plan to read the full book and may discuss it later, but you can find the Seattle Times article here.

• I just finished a memoir written by Sheila Johnson, the co-founder of BET and the first African-American woman billionaire. It’s called Walk Through Fire: A Memoir of Love, Loss & Triumph. It’s a pretty quick read and contains many compelling and well-written stories that will make you feel less alone about working in a man’s world.

Share Comes Now!

If you’re enjoying this newsletter, please share it with others and encourage them to subscribe. And if there’s a particular issue that moves you, drop a comment on the website or on my post about an issue on LinkedIn. Have a topic you’d like me to address? Send me an email at [email protected].