How Do Women Succeed in Law Firms?
Last week’s Economist (www.economist.com, subscription required) discusses the causes and effects of an every growing female workforce. Women do currently populate equal or greater-than-equal proportions in our universities and workforces at large, and there is much to be said and written about how this apparent equality is changing industry and economy.
From my law firm lens, however, there is still a great deal of progress left to be made, especially among partnership ranks. One of the articles in the Economist stood out. In the opinion piece Womenomics: Feminist Management Theorists are Flirting with some Dangerous Arguments, the author discusses whether women will be more successful running corporations by being like men, or by waiting until corporate culture evolves to recognize those leadership qualities that play more to female strengths (for example, consensus seeking). In the end, the author encourages women to stick to the former. Women are well-advised to take a harder edge, like Margaret Thatcher.
In the law firm setting, it’s easy to point out examples of successful female partners who have risen through the ranks without taking on the traditionally ‘hard edge’ associated with old school male leadership. Having said that, there are a few Margaret Thatchers out there as well. But in order to see more women successful, must we choose one path or the other? I find it depressing to think that the only way we’ll see women in law firm partnerships approaching 50% is for all female lawyers to do their best approximation of a tough-and-tumble men. Is that really what it’s going to take?
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