Nothing can stop change.  And changes in workplace are dictated by market forces.  An article in the Boston Globe titled “Many female lawyers dropping off path to partnership,” quoted some quite interesting data from the “Women Lawyers and Obstacles to Leadership” report prepared by the MIT Workplace Center.  They prepared the report conjointly with the major bar associations of Massachusetts.

Some of the data shows that:

• More women leave the partnership track than men do.
• Women fall off the track of partnership principally for the motherhood barrier.
• Ninety nine percent of male lawyers have a spouse or a constant partner at home, while only 84 percent of female lawyers enjoy the same privilege.
• Eighty percent of male lawyers have children compared to only 68 percent of female lawyers.
• Although, more men in the profession have children, most of them have never worked part-time compared to at least 40 percent of women lawyers with children who have engaged in part-time work.

The data supports a 1999 Boston Bar Association report that concluded with the warning: “We are in danger of seeing law firms evolve into institutions where only those who have no family responsibilities – or, worse, are willing to abandon those responsibilities – can thrive.”

That does paint quite a bleak picture for female lawyers, but things are changing on the national level.  Initially, the pressures of keeping their status as equal opportunity employers solely encouraged many big firms to improve conditions for women, but recently other factors have started to support this movement as well.  



It is no more a secret that many big business clients have made it a policy to work only with those law firms that exhibit proper diversity.  And law firms have woken up to that fact.  They have also woken up to the fact that most women clients feel more comfortable with women lawyers as primary liaisons.

Take for example Fish & Richardson.  There are continual efforts and programs by the firm to increase diversity, and project a diversity-friendly image, some of their efforts have really paid off.

The firm was one of the first to adopt a policy of promoting “family friendly benefits” to retain attorneys stressed with the responsibilities of children.  In 2005, the firm revamped its paternal leave and maternity leave policies, and today they are among the best in the legal workplace.  In the same year, the firm started providing child-care backup for all its workers.

Fish & Richardson offices host a program called LEAD (Leadership Through Enrichment Action, and Diversity Retreat) each year.  This program, meant for women attorneys and their clients, brings them together and allows them to share the firm’s resources in a congenial atmosphere.  It allows opportunities for networking and career development to women attorneys of the firm in a positive way.  Other major firms have also started to follow this practice of a yearly retreat to promote diversity.  Most are also known to provide childcare benefits with some going even so far as to open on-site childcare centers.

I feel as if the scenario for women lawyers is constantly improving and is not as bleak as once presumed.  If there are 17 percent women partners in law firms today, (as Boston Globe reports) then that is way more than the 12.71 percent found by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2003.

So, ladies, keep your chins up and keep working hard.  There is light at the end of the tunnel.