[UPDATE] Conference Recap Part III: Now with video!
We are grateful to YLS third-year and conference volunteer Erin Phillips for the following recap:
Presentation: Cynthia Calvert & Robert Nelson
Cynthia Calvert, with the Project for Attorney Retention in
DC, spoke about covert biases and negative underlying assumptions about women
that often negatively effect women lawyers’ evaluations in law firms, and can
lead to women feeling pushed out of the firm. Types of underlying bias can include maternal
wall bias against women who are or may become mothers. Ms. Calvert also spoke about the importance of
supervising attorneys in retaining junior lawyers, and especially junior women
lawyers. The good news in Ms. Calvert’s
presentation was that we can control underlying bias, and that law firms can
take action to keep women lawyers by instituting non-stigmatized reduced hours
work.
Robert Nelson presented data from the After the JD
longitudinal study of the entering bar class of the year 2000. Some of the most important, or surprising,
preliminary conclusions presented by Mr. Nelson are that there is a difference
in the percentages of men and women lawyers who are having children during
their careers, that men are much more likely than women to achieve equity
partnership in law firms, and that, after 7 years of the study, women only make
91% of what men marking.
One particularly interesting question from the audience was
related to the current economic crisis and how it might effect women lawyers. The question was: With the current economic
crisis, are underlying assumptions and biases, which can lead to negative
evaluations for women lawyers, going to lead to disproportionate numbers of
women lawyers being laid off from law firms? Cynthia Calvert noted that no one has really
looked at the data on that yet, but anecdotal evidence suggests that we should
be very concerned about this possibility.
VIDEO LINK: http://ylsqtss.law.yale.edu:8080/qtmedia/ylw/OptOutMorningPanel032809_s.mov