Super Lawyer Nominations due today

Superlawyers.com is calling for nominations for candidates for 2009 Mountain States Super Lawyers designation. 

All lawyers with at least 5 years experience may nominate candidates. If you didn’t receive a postcard inviting your nominations, click here for to request an access code.   Go to   https://my.superlawyers.com/ to nominate attorneys.

Now, personally, I’d like to see more women showing up on this list!. 

 

The nominations require only: First Name, Last Name, Firm and Practice Area (there’s an optional  comment section). 

 

Ahem – ust to help out anyone choosing to nominate me:

Tami Cowden

Kummer Kaempfer Bonner Renshaw and Ferrario

Appellate, general litigation

 

You can nominate up to 7 inside the your firm and 7 outside your firm.  However, your in-firm nominations count only if you nominate as many or more attorneys outside the firm.

The attorneys you nominate must have at least five years of experience as an attorney (not just here in Nevada – an attorney anywhere)

 

There is also a “Rising Star” category, for attorneys under 40, and with less than ten years experience as a lawyer. (I’d love to be a rising star, but I don’t qualify on either of those grounds!)

 

The 2009 winners will be announced in February and will publish in June or July of next year.

 

For those wanting to buy the superlawyer figurine (creators not, to my knowledge, affiliated with Superlawyer.com), click here

 

Read on for info about the selection process.  Take it as seriously as you like.

 

 

 

Step One: Creation of the Candidate Pool

Statewide survey of lawyers

* Each year, we conduct a statewide survey of lawyers (except in California, New York and Washington, D.C., where we survey by region). Lawyers eligible to participate include those who have been in practice for at least five years.

* This year, we will invite more than 800,000 lawyers nationwide to participate in our survey.

* We ask the lawyers to nominate the best attorneys they've personally observed in action.

* Nominees need not be in private practice. Lawyers may nominate legal aid attorneys, prosecutors and in-house counsel.

* Lawyers may nominate attorneys in their own firm, but these nominations count only if each in-firm nomination is matched by at least one out-firm nomination.

* Each nomination carries a point value. An out-firm nomination has substantially greater point value than an in-firm nomination.

* Lawyers cannot nominate themselves.

With our database, we are able to keep track of who nominates whom. This helps us detect any excessive "back-scratch" nominations (lawyers nominating each other) and "block nominations" (where members of the same law firm all cast identical ballots).

What Do Women Want?

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!