“If you become his second wife, you are a fool”: Shifting paradigms of the roles, perceptions, and working conditions of legal secretaries in large law firms

• Date: 24 September 2010
• Published date: 24 September 2010
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-4337(2010)0000052009
• Pages: 169-210
• Author: Felice Batlan

‘‘IF YOU BECOME HIS SECOND

WIFE, YOU ARE A FOOL’’:

SHIFTING PARADIGMS OF THE

ROLES, PERCEPTIONS, AND

WORKING CONDITIONS

OF LEGAL SECRETARIES IN

LARGE LAW FIRMS

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Felice Batlan

ABSTRACT

The academic literature that addresses the creation and transformation

of large law firms seldom mentions the presence of legal secretaries.

The absence of legal secretaries, the vast majority of whom are women,

reproduces law firm hierarchies in which attorneys are important in

understanding the legal profession and law firm dynamics while

secretaries remain invisible. Given the lack of secondary literature on

legal secretaries, much of this chapter is based upon legal secretaries’

responses to a nationwide survey, which I conducted in Spring 2009.

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Felice Batlan is an associate professor of law at Chicago-Kent College of Law.

Special Issue: Law Firms, Legal Culture, and Legal Practice

Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Volume 52, 169–210

Copyright r2010 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved

ISSN: 1059-4337/doi:10.1108/S1059-4337(2010)0000052009

169

Using such data, along with other primary sources, the chapter examines

how legal secretaries’ roles and work have changed during the past 50

years, how legal secretaries view themselves and their roles in law large

law firms, and the material conditions under which legal secretaries work.

Moreover, the most significant scholarship on secretaries has depicted the

secretary/boss relationship as one of personal and domestic nature – what

we might call the ‘‘second-wife syndrome.’’ The chapter explores whether

such a description remains accurate and the complicated gender dynamics

that exist between legal secretaries and attorneys.

1. INTRODUCTION

The academic literature that addresses the creation and transformation

of large law firms seldom mentions the presence of legal secretaries.

Likewise, works that discuss women attorneys and even issues of gender in

such firms also neglect women secretaries to the point that one might

conclude that female lawyers are the only women at large law firms. Such

absence of legal secretaries, the vast majority who are women, reproduces

law firm hierarchies in which attorneys are deemed to matter and to be of

importance to understanding the legal profession and law firm dynamics,

while secretaries remain invisible, inconsequential, and voiceless. Given the

lack of secondary literature on legal secretaries in large law firms, much of

this chapter is based upon legal secretaries’ responses to a 73-question

nationwide survey I conducted in spring 2009. Using such data, along with

other primary sources, the chapter examines how legal secretaries’ roles and

work have changed during the past 50 years, how legal secretaries view

themselves, why women decide to become legal secretaries, how they perceive

that others view them, their level of satisfaction, the work they actually

perform, the work family/conflicts they experience, how the recent financial

crisis has affected them, and the complicated relationships that they have

with attorneys, especially women attorneys.

More specifically from the literature on attorneys at large law firms,

women attorneys in large law firms, as well as secretaries in general,

one would expect to find that legal secretaries’ satisfaction and quality

of work life were quite low. This seems especially the case given the

increased computerization of law firms and the now decades-old perception

that legal secretaries were becoming obsolete. Further, the most significant

scholarship on secretaries has depicted the secretary/boss relationship as one

FELICE BATLAN170

of a personal and domestic nature – what we might call the ‘‘second wife’’ or

‘‘office wife syndrome’’ (Kanter, 1977). Yet what does this mean in a culture

in which the very meaning of ‘‘wife’’ is changing and unstable and where

legal secretaries now work for multiple attorneys, including women lawyers.

This chapter proceeds by first discussing the history of legal secretaries.

The section focuses on the changing nature of the job as it became

feminized, as law firms adopted computers, and as the feminist movement

affected women’s career opportunities and gender relations more generally.

The next section discusses Rosabeth Kanter’s highly influential work on

secretaries and Mary Murphree’s study of secretaries at one Wall Street law

firm. Given that both of these works are over 25 years old, the chapter is

especially concerned with understanding how the working conditions and

perceptions of legal secretaries may have changed or remained the same, and

the extent to which Kanter’s and Murphree’s works are still valid. The last

parts of the chapter discuss and analyze the findings from the survey.

The chapter thus seeks to historicize the role of legal secretaries, locating

continuities and ruptures, while expanding and challenging existing theory

in an often neglected field.

2. A BRIEF HISTORY OF LEGAL SECRETARIES

In order to understand and contextualize the survey responses, as well as

locate historical change, this section will provide a brief history of legal

secretaries. In fact, who becomes a legal secretary and the work that he or

she performs has undergone remarkable changes, which involve the

intersection of the transformation of law firms, legal profession, women in

the work force, and technology. Through the 1870s, an urban law office

would have consisted of a small number of attorneys, male clerks, and

perhaps a copyist and an office boy. Clerkships were generally temporary

positions and part of the apprenticeship system through which young men

became lawyers. As new technologies were invented, such as typewriters,

telephones, and stenography, the gender of the clerical workforce changed

from men to women for a variety of complicated reasons (Davies, 1982).

By 1920, 48% of the U.S. clerical force was female, and many of the leading

law firms began the process of replacing their male clerks with female

secretaries (Murphree, 1981, p. 64). In the ensuing years, the number of

female legal secretaries only increased as the typewriter became associated

with feminine skills such as sewing, playing piano, and the supposedly

nimble fingers that women possessed (Pringle, 1988, p. 174).

‘‘If You Become His Second Wife, You Are a Fool’’ 171