Law Students

Unintended Consequences and Using the All-Mighty Dollar as a Carrot

Posted on March 18, 2008
There has been a lot of buzz in the blawg-o-sphere this week about Harvard Law School's announcement that it will waive 3L tuiton for those going to work for the government or public interest for the five years after law school. I think this news is great...

Ms. JD Weekly Round-Up: Week Ending March 14, 2008

Posted on March 13, 2008
Evelyn Baker, Missouri's first black female circuit judge, plans to retire from the St. Louis court at the end of March. Profile: Pat Butler, the third woman to attend Emory University's School of Law, and pioneer in the Department of Justice, reflects on her legal career...

They just don't get it

Posted on March 13, 2008
Somewhat tangentially related to my last disappointment in the older but wiser generation's lawyers and their attitudes about young-ish attorneys came this priceless nugget... In consulting with an "expert" about what a symposium on the issue of work-life balance should focus on, the expert's first piece of advice was that our speaker should tell people what work-life balance really is because "it is [his] experience that today's young attorneys don't really know what it is...

'Dear Sisters, Dear Daughters' - A New Mentorship Publication from the Multicultural Women Attorney Network

Posted on March 12, 2008
The ABA's Multicultural Women Attorney Network has published an exciting and unique new work to address the limited mentoring opportunities between multicultural women. Entitled 'Dear Sisters, Dear Daughters: Words of Wisdom from Multicultural Women Attorneys Who've Been There and Done That,' this publication is a compilation of letters from multicultural women attorneys who graduated from law school more than a decade ago...

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Does Sexism Still Exist?

Posted on March 10, 2008
The word on the street seems to be that if you think you're the victim of sexism, you are either paranoid or looking for excuses for a non-gender-related failing. I myself am guilty of blaming sexism--when I blogged about a male colleague who changed one of my recommendations at work behind my back, I bitterly recounted the story to friends with the added conclusion: "he never would have done that if I were a male colleague...

Meet Penelope Andrews

Posted on March 10, 2008
As a Visiting Professor of Law at Valparaiso University School of Law, Penelope Andrews focuses her teaching and research on a variety of topics including: anti-discrimination law and policy, international human rights law, gender and the law, and judicial enforcement of socio-economic rights...

Must Read: Judge Kaye & Anne Reddy on Women in Firms

Posted on March 09, 2008
Twenty years ago Judith Kaye - now the Chief Judge of New York's Court of Appeals and a keynote speaker at Ms. JD's upcoming Student Leadership Summit - published a breakthrough study in the Fordham Law Review on the state of gender equity in law firms...

Does "Having it All" require "Settling"?

Posted on March 09, 2008
Recently a friend alerted me to Lori Gottlieb's article in The Atlantic Monthly advising women in their twenties to "settle" when it comes to finding a mate: Don?t worry about passion or intense connection. Don?t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling ?Bravo!? in movie theaters...

Blog Watch: Daily Kos Tallies Women in Top Elected Offices

Posted on March 07, 2008
Daily Kos has tallied up the number of women in top elected positions in response to Hillary Clinton's comment about Iowa and Mississippi never electing any. Kos notes that a number of other states could be added to that pathetic list if you excluded the widows who succeeded their late-husbands and Lt...

Ms. JD Weekly Round-Up: Week Ending March 7, 2008

Posted on March 06, 2008
Advancing Women in the Legal Profession Ten years after the initial report of New York City Bar?s Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice and Committee on Women in the Profession, the recommendations have received worldwide attention. Penn law grad countersues over Web posts about women law students Anthony Ciolli of AutoAdmit fame is countersuing two of the Yale Law students who sued him over the AutoAdmit scandal...

The Green Monster: When Your Significant Other Is a Lawyer

Posted on March 04, 2008
The Washington Post has an interesting article on social psychologist Abraham Tesser's research on "how close friends and intimate partners who are engaged in similar work or activities compare themselves with one another." I can't even count all the couples I knew from law school who met in Torts, dated through Fed Courts, and were married (or engaged) by commencement...

New Report on How Firms Can Retain Women

Posted on March 04, 2008
The Georgia Association for Women Lawyers released a report on retaining women attorneys entitled: IT'S ABOUT TIME II: Examining Flexible Work Arrangements from the Attorney's and the Firm's Perspectives -- A Study of Part-time Policies in Georgia Law Firms...

Work/life balance essay contest update

Posted on March 03, 2008
Thanks to everybody who entered the Ms. JD essay contest on work/life balance. Many of the essays were fantastic! The submissions are now being judged anonymously by attorneys recruited by the Project for Attorney Retention. The $1,000 winner will be announced by the end of this month...

ACLU gains admission for women into private club [Clippings]

Posted on March 03, 2008
Salon.com reports that the ACLU has successfully argued for the admission of women into Mystic, California's influential German Social Society Frohsinn, Inc., a social networking organization. This hardly spells the end of gender exclusive provate clubs...

Basic Psychology

Posted on March 03, 2008
There is an very good article in last week's issue of Corporate Counsel magazine titled: Big-Firm Associates: Why They Go and How to Keep Them. I would recommend reading the entire article to anyone who, like me, is always thinking about the retention problem faced by big law firms...

Ms. JD Weekly Round-up: Week Ending February 29

Posted on February 28, 2008
Linda K. Lorimer Wins Sandra Day O'Connor Award Lorimer receives award that recognizes women lawyers who have served with distinction as independent directors of public companies and advanced diversity in board positions. Maternity Leaves Key to Retaining Women Paid maternity leaves and a pool of lawyers capable of filling in during the leaves are among proposals advanced by a working group that has been looking at how to stem an exodus of female lawyers from the profession...

Last Chance to Win $1,000 by THIS FRIDAY [Work/Life Essay Contest with No Minimum Essay Length]

Posted on February 27, 2008
If you marked your calendar to write a few words about work/life balance, the clock is ticking... entries to win $1,000 are due this Friday, February 29th. Hey, "leap day" is an extra day in the month anyway, right? Take 10 minutes of it (or a bit more) to try for $1,000...

Paid legal internship available at Ms. JD [summer job search]

Posted on February 27, 2008
Ms. JD is seeking responsible and self-motivated law students who have just finished their first or second years of law school to intern for at least ten weeks in the summer of 2008. A $3,500 stipend will be provided. Here is a complete job description...

Do Solo Practice Women Lawyers Charge Less Than Their Male Counterparts?

Posted on February 24, 2008
In December of 2007, ALM Research released the results of its survey of 5,000 lawyers working in small and midsize firms and solo practices. The respondents were 78% male and 22% female, which could mean that fewer women work in smaller firms and solo practice; or that women were less inclined to participate; or that fewer women are "leader, manager, partner, shareholder, or owner" of these firms, since ALM reports that these were the majority of the people answering the survey...

Is there an issue with calling yourself an "esquire"?

Posted on February 23, 2008
Are you, like me a few days ago, unaware of the debate raging on the proper use of the title Esquire? Among the issues: can you call yourself Esquire? can you use the title outside of a legal context? can the title even apply to women? My journey into these (mostly boring questions) started when I found this conversation on Google answers about potential issues with women lawyers putting "Esquire" after their names, with the question being whether there was something inherently male about the term...

A Girl Just Wants to Have Fun: Do I Have to Be Serious to Be Taken Seriously?

Posted on February 23, 2008
I can be something of a girly-girl: I think I make a bubbly first impression, I can have a silly sense of humor, I spend a lot of time thinking about my shoes, and I waste time reading about celebrities. Basically I engage in some frivolity, and I like that about myself...

Would people respond better to what you say if you were a man?

Posted on February 23, 2008
In an article on women's leadership styles, Nicholas Kristof references research that "women, compared with men, tend to excel in consensus-building and certain other skills useful in leadership." In explaining why women have not had more success in achieving positions in government despite these strengths, Kristof hypothesizes that "in the televsion age, female leaders also have to navigate public prejudices...

Judge Boone's Reprimand Also Demonstrates Progress

Posted on February 22, 2008
When news broke that Maryland Judge W. Kennedy Boone was reprimanded in January for calling three African-American women lawyers ?the Supremes? and advising the defendant to ?get an experienced male attorney,? people were dismayed. How could this still be happening? It?s one thing when Imus does it, but a judge...

Ms. JD Weekly Roundup: Week Ending February 22, 2008

Posted on February 22, 2008
Closing the LSAT gender gap While 49% of those taking the LSAT in 2005-2006 were female, only 46.9% of those entering law schools were female, perhaps because, according to this author, men do better than women on the LSAT. Balancing the scales Ashley Meredith Lowe's firm, Baker Donelson, "launched an initiative in 2006 aimed at enhancing the role of women in the practice through a mentoring program, work-life balance seminars, and opportunities for continuing education, leadership development and networking...

Do Other Women Lawyers Prefer Working With Men or Women?

Posted on February 19, 2008
The February 2008 issue of the ABA Journal Magazine features an article entitled What Women Lawyers Really Think of Each Other. The answer? The ABA Journal surveyed 1,400 people, of which 58% were indifferent about the gender of their co-workers. The other 42% had preferences one way or the other with female supervisors over the age of 40 preferring to work with women because women lawyers "take direction better" (80%), "take constructive criticism better" (59%), and "have more discretion" (79%)...

Choosing a Law School

Posted on February 18, 2008
Law school is as much about receiving an education as it is about networking and making connections, both in the intellectual and in the career-building sense. Going to a brand-named law school will open doors by name alone. However, are these doors, traditionally ones that open and close for men on men?s terms (see any number of writings about the glass ceiling or pink ghetto), the doors that women want to travel through? In my own law school application process, I visited about ten schools prior to applying (ranging from top tier to bottom tier)...

Allison Wolf Gives Advice on Rainmaking for Young Women Attorneys

Posted on February 18, 2008
Allison Wolf wrote an interesting piece on how to become a rainmaker as a young woman lawyer, even if you don?t view yourself as the conventional rainmaker. Wolf describes the stereotypical rainmaker as an extroverted man who ?likes to talk? and is ?a bit egotistical but keeps it in check? and "always out and about networking, attending events, and talking business...

Interviews: Do men and women have different experiences?

Posted on February 18, 2008
Some people think that women and men are treated differently during interviews. In an attempt to discover these differences, I asked one married man and one married woman to describe their 2L summer interview experiences. As a small sampling, their responses are not meant to draw any widespread conclusions, but merely serve as a starting place to reflect...

How to Avoid Crying at Work [Part 1 of 3]

Posted on February 16, 2008
Last week I linked to a lively discussion of crying in public. In a comment, CM asked how to prevent crying at inappropriate moments. Sintecho asked me the same thing a couple weeks back. So I've rounded up a bunch of bona fide face-savers plus a myth to debunk...

Ms. JD Weekly Round-up: Week Ending February 15, 2008

Posted on February 14, 2008
Gender gap remains for aspiring politicians A survey released by Kaplan Test Prep of students preparing for the LSAT finds that 52% of the men indicated they would "definitely or probably run for office," compared only 34% of the women. Commentary on this study along with quotes by Barbara Buckley, Nevada Assembly Speaker and woman lawyer, can be found here, and yet another commentary on Kaplan's study can be found here...

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