Female Leaders in Law
WLC’s 2020 Symposium Week kicked off Monday with a lunch panel discussion highlighting the unique opportunities and challenges for women as leaders in the law. Among the legal professionals on the panel were Stephanie Albano (Associate, Asset Management) from Willkie Farr, Tessa Lee (Associate, Tax) from Sullivan & Cromwell, Coral A. Negron (Partner, Investigations, Compliance & Defense) Jenner & Block, and Lauren Loew (Partner, Litigation) from Foley & Lardner, with Northwestern Professor Ellen Mulaney as our moderator.
The event showcased how these female attorneys, from varied backgrounds, learned to navigate their legal careers and land roles in which they felt empowered, effective, and encouraged.
During the hour, the panelists provided considerable wisdom, informed by their collective lived experiences. We wanted to share some of their insight below:
1. What are the qualities necessary to be an effective leader?
Women would do well to invest time, early and often, in curating a balanced projection of empathy with sternness to colleagues, particularly among those more junior. The ascent to leadership can pose a particularly thorny terrain for a female attorney who has developed a reputation for being a helpful and trusted resource for others. As one panelist shared: when you ask someone to do something for you, they need to know when you are asking and when you are telling them.
2. What initiatives should women pursue to best position themselves for further success?
The panelists each took great pride in sharing details about their respective firms’ employee resource groups for women and general professional opportunities available once you begin as an associate. These opportunities, whether catered specifically to women or not, are all encouraged—providing you with a crash course on the types and styles of leadership that you may decide to emulate.
Still, our panelists caveated that it is certainly not the case, nor is it expected for it to be, that everyone feels comfortable in or seeks out leadership roles. These professional development opportunities are nonetheless a wonderful resource to supplement the various skill-sets on which you may decide to focus.
3. How should a female attorney go about becoming a rainmaker/client-getter?
Build relationships with your colleagues early! The same folks you begin working with as a junior associate may very well be the general counsel with whom you are working with a decade from now. Building relationships early and tending to them, as well as building your reputation as a hard (and good) worker can often temper, or sometimes transcend, many of the issues that arise from having to develop a strong client base of all men as a high-powered female attorney.
4. What can our male counterparts in the legal field to help further retention efforts and the success trajectory of women in the legal field?
With more men than women in leaderships position within the legal field, it is imperative to have the support of these colleagues to further advance the opportunities for women. The panelists encouraged various efforts these individuals could uphold:
· Talk about your kids! The reality is, most attorneys at major law firms have children—whether the attorney is male or female. Panelists suggested that men should be more vocal when they leave work early for reasons to do with their children; this helps combat the implicit and sometimes, explicit, assumption that women always leave for reasons relating to their children and men do so for non-familial related matters.
· Be mindful about the work you assign to your associates. As one panelist noted, there is sometimes a trend that emerges where female associates are assigned more procedural/organizational whereas the substantive work is assigned to male associates. Although this is not done consciously, the subconscious bias can lead to limiting experiences unless it is consciously counteracted with efforts to give all associates a chance at all types of work.
We are so grateful to the panelists who took the time to talk about their careers today and we are looking forward to the rest of WLC Symposium Week!
Post Written By: Zohra Yaqhubi, 1L Representative for Mentorship