Your voice. ?Ask the Women'

• Author: Megan Elizabeth Gray
• Pages: 28-30

YOUR VOICE

‘Ask the

Women’

If you want to retain more women

in law firms, find out what they

need

BY MEGAN ELIZABETH GRAY

I

spent nearly 10 years at a world-

class international law rm that

had disproportionately more men

than women at the partnership

level. And while the number of women

who entered the rm was the same as

men, the number of women who left

was greater.

Why was that? It was a question I

devoted a lot of time to exploring in

my capacity as co-chair of the rm’s

Women’s Network, which I did along-

side my corporate client work.

Along the way, I listened to my

female colleagues’ stories and felt I

understood some of the root causes of

the rm’s seeming inability to retain

women equally and promote them to

partnership. These same root causes

are well documented in studies such

as the ABA’s 2019 report Walking

out the Door and its 2021 report

In Their Own Words: Experienced

Women Lawyers Explain Why They

Are Leaving Their Law Firms and

the Profession. These causes include

high-level systemic structural and cul-

tural problems as well as the everyday

battles women are ghting while com-

bating unequal access to opportunities,

conscious and unconscious biases, and

noninclusive workplaces. All have a

cumulative effect on women and their

career trajectories.

A few concrete examples: I knew of

women who were told during their an-

nual reviews they shouldn’t be so “ob-

vious” about their ambition, reecting

a bias against something for which

men aren’t accused or penalized. I also

knew of all-male teams being appoint-

ed for industry conferences, which

begged the question of whether women

were even considered. I knew of client

relationship-building events geared

toward and attended primarily by male

colleagues, which directly impacted

which associates were later staffed on

those clients’ (possibly high-prole)

transactions.

That said, I felt the Women’s Net-

work had made some progress, such

as working to implement a new rm

policy of using gender-neutral language

(rather than “Dear Sirs”) and creating

the Every Day Gender Equality Com-

mitment, signed by more than 2,000

people across the rm who agreed to

take 10 specied actions to confront

and transform persistent problems.

Despite our perceived progress and

after years of bearing witness as senior

female colleagues left the rm—as if on

cue—it took facing a block in my own

career journey to truly understand.

Some law rms are losing women

because they are not listening to the

edited by

BLAIR CHAVIS & LIANE JACKSON

blair.chavis@americanbar.org

liane.jackson@americanbar.org

Practice Matters

Illustration by Sara Wadford/ABA Journal

ABA JOURNAL | FEBRUARY–MARCH 2022

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