It’s nice to know that female dinosaurs are not completely extinct in the workplace, at least according to a recent New York Times article that said that women in their 60s and 70s (yes, you read that correctly) still want to be in the workforce, not only in it, but on top of it. However, the article doesn’t discuss how many women are at the top of the legal profession. More’s the pity
The National Association for Law Placement recently released its 2018 report on diversity in US law firms. In general, better news for women, minority and LGBT lawyers, but the numbers for African-American associates remain below pre-recession numbers. Remember the Great Recession? While the gains are touted, close scrutiny of the numbers reveals that not really all that much has changed in positive ways. Percentage gains are there, but hardly eye-popping. Just like in real estate, location, location location can make the difference in diversity results. So, for example and to no one’s surprise, Miami has a more diverse legal community than Boston.
As the NALP’s executive director notes, the report is good news/bad news. In a massive understatement, he says that “…much much works remains to be done.” Obviously.
So what are we going to do about it? Are we ever going to make some real substantive progress? What is it going to take for our profession look more like our society? I wish I knew.
Women of a certain age, and that age seems to get lower and lower all the time, know that they are in many ways “invisible.” Their accomplishments have been overlooked, ignored, dismissed for decades and even longer. For example, I would have never known about Eunice Hunton Carter if I hadn’t read the book by her grandson, Stephen L. Carter. The title of Carter’s book, Invisible, says it all.
The New York Times is trying to make amends for oversights tolerated by women for what seems like forever. Early last year, the Times woke up from its Rip Van Winkle slumber and noticed the accomplishments of so many women in so many fields who never were recognized for their contributions. The Times now is running a feature called “Overlooked” featuring the obituaries of accomplished women in all different walks of life who never got their due while alive. I don’t know if it makes any difference now (is it a case of better late than never?), but at least the Times is trying to acknowledge that women have made substantial contributions in medicine, science, the arts, literature, politics, and yes, even the law.
Here’s one example: Laura de Force Gordon, a suffragette (yes, it will be only 100 years next year that women won the right to vote in this country), a journalist and a lawyer. For all of us women who have been told “don’t worry your pretty little head about X or Y,” Gordon aptly commented that society “sneered at learned women.” I think things have changed, but sometimes I wonder. Mansplaining is still with us. Interrupting us is still with us.
Gordon, along with Clara Shortridge Foltz, was barred from attending law school at Hastings in San Francisco because of fear that their “rustling skirts” would disturb male students. Gordon was only the second woman admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme Court (Belva Lockwood was the first); a newspaper claimed that “hens” were piping “shrill clarions” at the justices.
On second thought, maybe things haven’t changed. I still do hear the term “shrill” applied to women. What’s the corollary term applied to men? Whoops, I forgot, there isn’t one.
Gordon, who died in 1907, tried and won many cases, but for some reason newspapers who reported on her cases commented on her appearance, noting her simple manner of dress. Okay, nothing has changed; newspapers still report on what a woman is wearing, but not a man. And exactly what does attire have to do with accomplishments?
And it wasn’t all that many years ago that women law students were accused of taking seats that allegedly belonged to men. While some may still think that way, at least they’re smart enough not to say it or at least where anyone who cares about the status of women in the profession can hear it.
Fast forward to today, and there’s the obituary in the New York Times of the first woman judge to serve on and be Chief Judge of the D.C. Circuit, Patricia Wald.
Judge Wald’s obituary recounts the difficulties that women faced in becoming lawyers in the mid twentieth century. When Judge Wald graduated Yale Law School in 1951, Harvard had not even considered women for admission a scant three years before. Before law school graduation, Judge Wald interviewed for a job at a Manhattan law firm, but the firm told her that it had hired one woman associate and was not planning to hire any others. A quota by any other name is still a quota.
Still sounds familiar, doesn’t it, mirroring the subsequent experience of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor? She was offered a legal secretarial job upon her graduation from Stanford Law (she was number two in her class, William Rehnquist was number one) while Rehnquist obtained a Supreme Court clerkship. The early professional history of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was not much different.
Maybe someday, but probably not in my dinosaurial lifetime, the Laura deForce Gordons won’t have to wait for more than a century for their accomplishments to be recognized rather than overlooked. Maybe someday, and I will be taking a dirt nap then, women of distinction and achievement in our profession will not be labelled the “first” of whatever. That’ll be cause of celebration, but if the recent NALP report is any evidence, there’s still a long way for us to go.
When Will Women Lawyers Finally Get Their Due? Not In My Lifetime curated from Above the Law
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