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

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.

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For my part, the answer to that question has always been, “It depends on the woman.” 

(Does anyone ever ask “What do men want?” Not that I’ve noticed. But spare me any nonsense that this is because no one cares what men want. That’s not it at all. )

Personal rants aside, however, it is nice that the latest issue of The Complete Lawyer focuses on “What Do Women Really Want.”  The site offers a whole slew of articles that discuss progress, and lack thereof, in the situation of women in the legal profession. Among these:

Women Are Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands“We’ve been talking about gender issues for 20 years. Let’s see some progress!” By Holly English

The "Family-Friendly" Workplace Is Inadequate As currently practiced, they are mostly superficial, piecemeal and ultimately inadequate. By Ellen Ostrow

What Makes A "Best Law Firm For Women?" Analyzing 2007 trends of work/life balance and women at law firms. By Deborah Epstein Henry

Most interesting to me was Women Attorneys Share Work-Life Balance Tips. To counter the unrealistic “you-can-have-it-all” mindset, most women give themselves a heavy dose of reality. By Judi Craig

Nice, huh? We “want it all,” and therefore, have to be reminded that this is unrealistic. Frequently repeated tip: let your housework slide.  (There were variations on this – hire a maid, marry a house-husband, etc.)  

Now, anyone who has seen my house knows that this is advice to which I have long adhered.  I once successfully explained the mess in my house to a surprise visitor with the claim that my house had been ransacked and the police didn’t want me to touch anything until they came.  

But isn’t that advice just the perfect example of how male and female lawyers experience life differently? Has there ever an article on achieving work/life balance   directed to lawyers in general (i.e., male lawyers), rather than to female lawyers, that suggested blowing off cleaning the toilet and doing dishes as a way to achieve some personal time? 

If so, point me to it!

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Well, it's official.  Having children affects the “productivity” of attorneys, (assuming productivity can be defined through billable hours.)

However, where your "productivity" goes up or down depends upon your gender.

Researchers Jean Wallace and Marisa Young (University of Calgary, Department of Sociology) conducted a study of 670 lawyers and found that having children leads to a decrease in billable hours for female lawyers. Hardly surprising, huh? 

But they also found that having children resulting an increase of billable hours for male lawyers.  

One reason for the difference between male and females, the researchers speculate,  is that men are more likely to have a spouse who stays home with the children, freeing the males to take on more work responsibilities.  

However, the study also found that men and women took advantage of family-friendly benefits offered by employers in different ways. Fathers were more likely to use flexible work policies in pursuit of leisure activities. Mothers, need it be said, took advantage of the policies to catch up on domestic tasks.

Note, however, that the “most productive” of all groups is childless female lawyers.

 See the abstract at Parenthood and Productivity: A Study of Demands, Resources and Family-Friendly Firms, 72 J. Vocational Behavior 110 (Feb. 2008).

Hat Tips to Legal Blog Watch and TaxProf Blog

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Appealing in Nevada will henceforth devote Wednesdays to reporting on the world of women and the law – especially women lawyers, here in Nevada and elsewhere.

This is a subject near and dear to me, since, in case you hadn’t noticed, I happen to be both a woman and a lawyer.

Women who happen to be lawyers face challenges unlike those faced by men, resulting in a need to make choices that men simply don’t need to make. For example, I daresay very few men attend law school while pregnant, as I did.  Although the pregnancy did not have a negative effect my class rank (in fact, I advanced in rank), the birth of my daughter in June, between my second and third years of law school, did preclude my acceptance of a summer clerkship similar to those taken by my peers.  My subsequent employment choices: i.e., government and academia also reflected certain realities wrought by my status as a parent (including seven years as a single parent). 

I do not regret the choices I made. I have a wonderful daughter, now an adult, with whom I have a good relationship.  My employment choices enabled me to volunteer in her classroom, be an assistant Brownie leader for her troop, coach her sports teams, and for most days during middle and high school, be home when she came home from school. I was, and am, a terrific mom, as she tells me every now and again.

When she went to college, I went to work in a law firm. My employment choices also shaped the lawyer I am today, including what a lawyer with what I immodestly consider to be exemplary writing skills.

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