Nevada Appellate Lawyer & Attorney : Tami D. Cowden : Nevada Supreme Court, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

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It is well known, of course, that Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels.  

I personally eschew the stilettos, but have certainly seen many a fashionably high heel on my sister attorneys.  So, is it harder to practice law in high heels?

The answer to that question is yes.  Or, at least, that is the title of a book offering the views of women who practice law.  It's Harder in Heels": Essays by Women Lawyers Achieving Work-Life Balance, edited by Prof. Jacquelyn H. Slotkin and Samatha Slotkin-Goodman.

This book contains essays by and about women lawyers.  Note that I haven’t put this up in the When Lawyers Write feature, and for good reason – most of the women who describe their career paths here are not blessed with story telling skills.

Nevertheless, this book offers some insights into the challenges women face in this profession, and a variety of responses to those challenges.

As women in this profession, we have bonded together to discuss the problems we face with online networking resources such as Ms. JD  or organizations such as the National Assocition of Women Lawyers-NAWL (formed in 1899!)   

We study the challenges we face through commissions such as  the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession.  

We even hold summits on improving our lot, such as the LexisNexis Women in the Legal Profession Summit: Rainmaking, Negotiating and Collaborative Development.

But what a book like It’s Harder in Heels shows is that each of us will face challenges that may be superficially similar, but are ultimately unique and personal to us.  And each of us must decide how we personally will respond to those challenges.