Obstruction in justice
Pay gap, undervalued skills quickly thin the ranks of female lawyers in Colorado
For as long as she can remember, Jennifer Knight has wanted to be two things: an attorney and a leader. ¶ But if current trends hold, by the time she hits the point in her career when she would typically take on leadership roles, the number of her female colleagues will have plummeted – or Knight herself will have stopped practicing law.
In Colorado, the number of male practicing attorneys remains constant until retirement age, compared with the number of women, which declines sharply from decade to decade, according to a report by the state office of the attorney regulations counsel that included a snapshot of the state’s 2015 attorney census.
The drop in the number of female attorneys is not new and is not unique to Colorado, experts say. But the reasons women leave the demanding field go well beyond long-held assumptions about parenting. And some warn that when women leave the field they take important skills with them.
Knight, 26, is one of almost 200 women who participated in graduation ceremonies at Colorado’s two law schools this spring. As they have for more than a decade, women this year make up roughly half of the attorneys entering the work force.
Still, a decade into her career, the number of Knight’s female colleagues will begin to decrease. By the time she’s 40, 20 percent fewer women her age will be practicing law, according to the report.
When Knight is 50, female attorneys her age will be outnumbered by men 3 to 1.
Systemic issues in the structure of private firms and how certain skill sets are valued have stifled women’s advancement in private firms, said Leslie Richards-Yellen, the incoming president of the National Association of Women Lawyers.
“There are a lot of systemic issues and biases at play that make it harder for women attorneys to advance,” RichardsYellen said.
For more than 15 years, women have made up 50 percent of law school graduates, according to the NAWL’s 2015 national survey. But the number of female equity partners at firms increased only 2 percent in the past 10 years, reaching 18 percent last year.
At that pace, women will not account for 30 percent of equity partners until about 2081, according to the NAWL report.
In Colorado, 71 percent of practicing attorneys work in private law firms, according to the regulations counsel’s report.
The expectation that women may have children affects how they are treated, but it is seldom the sole reason women leave private firms, said Joyce Sterling, a professor of legal ethics and legal profession at the University of Denver’s law school. Sterling co-authored an article with Nancy Reichman, a professor of sociology and criminality at DU, that researched how women are treated and opportunities for advancement in the legal field.
The article is expected to be released this spring.
“Most people like to use the family and child conflict, but there is a pretty significant body of research that shows that doesn’t explain the disparity,” Sterling said. “Even if women take no time off and have no children, they still experience a pay disparity and the lag in partnership.”
Women working in legal occupations experience one of the highest wage gaps in the country, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor. In 2014, the median weekly pay for women in the legal field was 56 percent of their male counterparts.
The wag gap between male and female physicians and surgeons was 37 percent and women working in architectural and engineering fields had a wage gap of 18 percent for the same year.
In addition to pay, decisions to leave the field often are driven by a lack of advancement opportunities and a disparity in how their skill sets are valued in firms, Sterling said.
“The problem is that over time these women, who are being overlooked and undervalued, may eventually decide, ‘Why am I knocking myself out,’ and then decide, ‘Maybe I should just try an entirely different profession,’ ” Sterling said.
Women are less likely to burn bridges when they leave a firm, citing a more acceptable excuse, like wanting to start a family, rather than explaining they’ve felt undervalued or are worried they will not advance within the firm.
When women leave the legal field they may be taking with them some of the skills that clients value the most, said Alli Gerkman, director of the Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Initiative at the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System.
The morning before she graduated from the University of Colorado law school, Knight sipped a cup of coffee and listed the unique skills women bring to the legal field: emotional intelligence, collaboration, sensitivity.
These are the skills that are “the true meaning of what a counselor is — not just a lawyer,” Knight said. “Having more legal teams with women on them is a better thing for clients.”
As part of a national study, to be released this spring, IAALS surveyed thousands of entry-level attorneys to identify what skills they think make successful attorneys.
Women attorneys valued forming relationships, emotional intelligence, understanding social cues and big-picture thinking as some of the most important values, Gerkman said.
“If more women were working within firms that let these skill sets shine, organizations would see just how valuable they are to their clients,” Gerkman said.
The skills most valued by men interviewed for the study were generating and retaining business.
Those skills — crucial to the success and sustainability of firms — are rewarded heavily. But they also foster biases that prevent women and minorities from advancing, Richards-Yellen said.
Attorneys who bring clients into firms often are rewarded for doing so, even if they no longer handle the case on an ongoing basis, Richards-Yellen said. When the attorney who brought the business into the firm leaves, firms do not do an adequate job of making sure that women and minorities take on that work, she said.
Research has shown that may be the result of an unintentional bias known as in-group favoritism, Richards-Yellen said. Essentially, men promoted to leadership roles in firms may subconsciously favor the men below them.
Addressing the long-standing structures and processes in firms may be one way to improve equality.
“What’s really great is that little steps can make a big difference,” RichardsYellen said.
Despite slow progress — and disbelief by some that the disparities exist — there is still hope that women will continue to make strides in the legal field.
Looking ahead to her career, Knight knows that the toughest challenges will create the most rewarding experiences. This summer she will begin a clerkship at the Colorado Court of Appeals and is considering a career in litigation.
“I don’t think that there is anything that needs to hold me back,” Knight said.
As she works toward leadership roles, Knight says some of her strongest allies will be women paving the path before her and the women walking beside her. And one day, she said, she hopes to be breaking new ground for the women behind her.