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will mesh with their family obligations.
It’s an admirable notion, and if I were just
getting out of college, something that I
would embrace.
But some industries, like Big Law,
don’t just need women lawyers who are
hungry and smart and willing to bill pun-ishingly long hours alongside their male
colleagues. Firms also need to make top-down, institutional changes to achieve
greater gender parity and advancement.
(Currently, women constitute 15 percent
of the equity partnership at the big firms
and half of the associates.)
One way to address this issue is to
adopt an idea proposed by American Bar
Association president Laurel Bellows and
the ABA’s Task Force on Gender Equity.
(The task force has a multipoint program
to help women lawyers make sure they
are paid fairly; go to americanbar.org for
more information.)
Bellows and the task force argue that
if a law firm’s compensation committee
only has white men on it, firms should appoint one or two of their most successful
women and/or minorities to the committee. This group is the sanctum sanctorum
of law firm pay and power. Yet women
occupy only 2.3 out of 12. 8 seats ( 18 percent) on average on law firm compensation committees, according to our survey
of 92 Am Law 100 firms (“The Law of
Small Numbers,” January).
Why appoint women and minorities? “It would be rare that a women’s
perspective wouldn’t shed some light on
the manner in which all candidates, men
and women, are evaluated,” says Bellows.
“Compensation will be fairer, appear fair-
er, and encourage women and people of
color to stay at the firm.”
These appointments are already be-
ing made at a few firms. Take Reed Smith.
In 2001 the firm amended its partnership
agreement to allow the executive commit-
tee (which doubles as its comp commit-
tee) to appoint three at-large members.
(Before, the nonmanagement members of
the committee had to be voted on by the
partnership.)
Those appointments had a positive
effect, as more women were inspired
over the next decade to run for the firm’s
elected spots as they opened up. Four of
the six women currently holding voting
seats on the executive committee ob-
tained their seats in an open election. “We
needed to get the flywheel moving,” says
global managing partner Greg Jordan.
Women would have been voted on to the
executive committee eventually anyway,
he says. “But it happened faster” this way,
according to Jordan: “Talent rises, but we
created the pathway.”
While critics might call these appoint-
ments a form of affirmative action, I think
they are more of an honest acknowledg-
ment that Big Law has a woman problem.
Women lawyers have flooded into firms
over the last 20 years, and for a host of
reasons, they haven’t reached parity with
men when they hit the partnership level.
Making these appointments seems like an
interim—but necessary—step.
“Lean in” is the current mantra for women in the business world, thanks to
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. She encourages women to be ambitious,
to take risks, even when they are scared or worried about how their work
For a conversation with Robin Sparkman,
go to americanlawyer.com
