A Roundtable Discussion on Gender Fairness Initiatives

By MARK W. LAMBERT

MR. CONNELLY: We’re here today [December 3, 2003] to have a roundtable discussion about the Houston Bar Association’s Gender Fairness Initiative. We want to start this discussion with a brief description of the initiative, its history and why we’ve come to this point of discussion. Mr. Godbold, may I call upon you to provide that?

MR. GODBOLD: Last year the HBA decided it was time for us, as a bar association, to look at where we are in terms of women in the profession, opportunities for women to advance, and recognition for women in the profession. We looked around the country and saw that other bar associations have embarked on various gender initiatives; that is, initiatives designed to raise the dialogue in the profession about women’s issues. We decided we would like to have the Houston legal community focus on a commitment statement, a statement that law firms and corporate legal departments of all sizes could review and sign that would say, basically, that we want to talk about women’s issues and we want to do a better job in making sure that women have opportunities to advance in the profession and in law firms and corporate legal departments.
The commitment statement we came up with has been signed by a number of law firms and corporate legal departments, and we were trying to make sure that other law firms and corporate legal departments get more people focused on this issue. This is not, in my mind, about affirmative action. It’s about intentional consideration of these issues. The commitment statement is not designed to tell law firms or corporate legal departments how to do their business. It is, though, designed to have folks focus on the issue of, “Are we doing what we should be doing as a legal profession and in our law firms and corporate legal departments to make sure that women have the opportunities they should have”? This round table discussion will help further publicize our goals.

MR. CONNELLY: Thank you, Tom. We’re joined here today by a number of distinguished representatives of the legal profession. We would like to hear about your personal feelings about the importance of this initiative.

MS. RODRIGUEZ: I’m Cristina Rodri-guez with Baker Botts. Signing the commitment statement was, frankly, an easy decision for our firm. Baker Botts has long been committed to issues that affect diversity in our profession, and we’re always thinking about issues that affect, in particular, women attorneys. Signing the commitment statement makes an important public statement about that commitment and the fact that we take gender equity very seriously. What we’d like to do by signing the commitment statement and participating in this task force is to share ideas with the rest of you and learn from the rest of you about how we can achieve this common goal to improve gender equity.

MS. PAINE: I’m Linda Paine with Chamberlain, Hrdlicka. Over 50 percent of the students in law schools are women. Most of these young women will go to work in law firms or corporations. But at a much faster rate than men, they leave the profession or they find different routes to practice law that takes them out of the visible workforce of law firms and corporations. Our firm, over the years, has had many wonderful women attorneys, and many wonderful women have left our firm. We want to do better in the future at providing an atmosphere in which women can flourish and continue in the profession.

MR. CONNELLY: There may be a different perspective from the standpoint of corporate legal departments. Neil, can you address the issue as to how a corporate legal department views gender initiative?

MR. WILCOX: I’d be glad to. I’m Neil Wilcox with J.P. Morgan Chase. I think it’s important to sign the commitment statement because it’s a way of recognizing that there is an issue. To follow up on Linda’s point, there are a large number of women law school graduates, and something happens between the time that they graduate and the time they choose to leave the profession. I think it’s very important that we begin a dialogue and try to find out the reasons why, and if there are things we can be doing that will rectify that situation. From our perspective, signing the commitment makes sense because it’s consistent with our diversity initiatives and with our corporate values in terms of continuing to be an employer of choice. I think one of the outstanding things about the commitment statement is that it not only addresses objectives such as increasing and retaining women in the profession, but it also addresses part-time, flexible schedules. It provides ways to retain great people.

MR. CONNELLY: An issue that often arises is whether there is a business reason for increasing the number of women in law firms. It is a subject that has been debated, and I’d like for individuals here to address that.

MS. HURWITZ: Karen Hurwitz with Karen Hurwitz & Associates. I think that certainly when women leave the profession - and we do have a higher incidence of attrition among women attorneys - that’s definitely a cost to law firms. Statistics show that when an associate leaves, it costs firms anywhere from two to five times that person’s salary. Other business reasons for having a more diverse workforce are that it enhances work product and attracts business. As we know, much of corporate America now is insisting that law firms that represent them be diverse in order to enhance their work product and better reflect their values. So there’s a cost, if you will, in not having the most diverse workforce that you can. By not reflecting that diversity in our workforce, we may, in fact, be losing business. We also know that as women bear children and take maternity leave they especially struggle with balancing careers with family life and with not falling off the partnership track. In order for law firms to reap the benefits of retaining more women in their firms, they must find new and alternative ways to work with women to keep them. In the end, I believe it will be financially in the best interest of the law firms to do so.

MR. CONNELLY: Howard, you are with a large national law firm. Is your perspective about the business reasons for a gender initiative any different?

MR. AYERS: I’m Howard Ayers with Andrews Kurth. I would echo a lot of Karen’s points. From a management perspective, I think the business case is fairly clear. I think retention is very valuable, but from my perspective, you must go beyond the numbers when you talk about business cases. I think having cultural richness and core values that you can be proud of, being committed to making people successful and providing opportunities for everybody over an entire career span, all contribute to the spirit of an organization. It’s the spirit of the organization that allows you to be productive, and it’s the productivity that achieves the economic rewards. I don’t start with the economic reward in the business case and work backwards. I start from the cultural and values story and work forward to the economic case. I think the economic case is clear.

MR. CONNELLY: How is our gender initiative received by a national law firm that has many offices in many states?

MR. COLEY: I am Randy Coley with King & Spalding. This issue is crucial to us as we are constantly searching for the very best legal talent to provide the services that our clients demand. When roughly 50 percent of the law students today are women, and obviously some of the very best law students are women, we have to provide opportunities that are attractive to those women, or we just won’t have the lawyers that we need to provide the sophisticated legal services that our clients demand.

MR. CONNELLY: Do you find that different offices have different policies concerning gender, or is there a standardized policy, and how consistent is the HBA’s initiative with what your firm is trying to do nationally?

MR. COLEY: Each of our offices operates exactly the same on these issues and views them exactly the same.

MS. LEMUTH: I’m Mary Lemuth from Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw. We have an international law firm, and we have offices all over the country. A number of our other offices are involved in gender initiatives and diversity, so we are following that lead and applaud the HBA for acting as a means for all of us to get together and discuss these issues. Our firm believes that when we lose the talented women we bring into the firm after a few years, we’re losing client relationships, as well. The clients are expecting a continuum in their legal services. When we have to bring in new people and redevelop those relationships, the cost in keeping that client happy is incalculable. The training, the amount of money and time we’ve invested in these women is very important, but the client relationships are huge.

MR. CONNELLY: The need to build a relationship, a long-term relationship with a client is so important.

MS. LEMUTH: Right. And corporations these days are realizing that they need to reflect the communities around them. The community expects us, as their representative, to look like them. The corporations have been ahead of the law firms in promoting and retaining women, although, of course, we all have a way to go. Because we are standing in for them as we do their deals, they expect us to mirror their population. So, these client relationships are extremely important.

MR. CONNELLY: The corporations and the corporate law departments may be ahead of the curve in terms of gender initiative. Why is that? Is there a better business case for corporations than there is for law firms?

MS. LEMUTH: For one thing, I think the corporations are directly affected by diversity in the community and have had to react more quickly than we have. Now, the corporations are expecting us to mirror what they’re doing. The bookkeeping elements in a law firm have made it a little more difficult to make a business case for part-time and flex-time. Corporations have been doing flex-time for at least 20 years, if not longer. We, as a service provider, have to be available when the client needs us. So, balancing the business case for retaining women while still being able to provide the service to our clients is a real juggling act.

MS. CASEY: I am Pat Casey with Haynes and Boone. Some clients will ask for records of the diversity of the people servicing their projects and will take their business somewhere else if they’re not satisfied with the diversity that the law firm is providing. But I don’t think the corporations are acting from an affirmative action standpoint. I think the clients are convinced that the more diverse the attorneys on the project, the better the creative energy that comes to the product and the better the communication skills. I think the clients overall are more satisfied if they have a more diverse group of people to deal with and to communicate with. They get a better legal product that way.

MR. WILCOX: Giving a corporate legal perspective on both of those points, I think they’re 100 percent on. I think that you do value the input of different viewpoints on various problems; and to pick up on a point that Mary made, I think that’s exactly correct that we do directly touch so many different constituencies and communities as a corporation. If you’re a public corporation, you are accountable to shareholders. In the case of a bank like J.P. Morgan Chase, we’ve got different community responsibilities. We’ve got corporate constituencies, small businesses, and each community has different needs and expectations from us. It enhances our ability to service those different businesses by having as diverse a workforce as we can.

MR. CONNELLY: We’ve talked about the practical business reasons for increasing the number of women in law firms and law departments. What types of programs, practices and policies can be put into effect that would advance the type of aspirational goals that this gender initiative has set out to accomplish?

MR. TREECE: I am Claude Treece from Gardere Wynne Sewell. I think we need to keep in mind what the reasons are for having the program in the first place. We’ve touched on the things you can put on a spreadsheet, such as retention and investment in attorneys. On the other hand, I think some of the points that Howard touched on, such as maintaining good morale and a positive firm culture, are equally important. It may not be possible to measure those things or put them on a spreadsheet, but on the other hand, no one would question that good morale and good productivity go hand in hand.
So, we have to have programs and policies that feed good morale and promote retention. How do you do that? First of all, it’s important to have structured mentoring programs to insure that lawyers develop relationships inside and outside the firm and develop their skills.
I’m sure we will talk more today about flex-time programs. Those are difficult to put into place. The economics and logistics have to be worked through rigorously, but they’re very important and they can be done. And, I think things like what we’re doing today, participating in seminars and roundtables, are important. The ABA has a women’s group that has national seminars. I think firms need to actively foster opportunities for women to go to those seminars, to develop networking, to develop professional skills and client relationships.

MR. CONNELLY: Marcia, I know your firm’s been quite active in this area. What suggestions can you make to us?

MS. BACKUS: I’m Marcia Backus with Vinson & Elkins. I’m going back to a point that Tom made at the very beginning, which is about being intentional. Corporate law departments probably do a better job than law firms in actually doing things that are outside the core practice of law; but I think that for law firms, it’s really important to be intentional. We’ve had a formal women’s initiative at Vinson & Elkins for three years. We hired an outside consultant, Catalyst, which is one of the premier nonprofit groups that actually looks at women’s issues to help us with all of the same things that are in the HBA gender initiative. We have established a board that includes members from outside the firm to make sure that we do what we say we’re going to do, and also to show that we’re really serious about this.
This has percolated to a number of different formal policies at the firm, which include totally revamping our flex policy, our mentoring, and our training. We have established an associate development committee. We asked one of our partners to switch from practicing law to head that committee, which is not just for women lawyers but also for our male lawyers. I think that focusing on formal policies is really helpful.

MS. FROST: I’m Claudia Frost with Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw. At our firm, we not only just talk the talk, we walk the walk, too. Like Vinson & Elkins and others around the table, we have instituted a wide array of programs and policies to promote flexibility and accommodation of lawyers in the workplace. Flex time and part-time programs are easier to initiate and accommodate now than they ever have been. Technology has made that possible. We have e-mail; we have remote computer access. And that has it made it easier for people to work from home or from a distance, both women and men.
For example, we have a male part-time associate working in the real estate section in Vermont. We have no office in Vermont, but he does that work from there. We also have women who work from home and men who work from home. We have myriad examples of part-time or flex-time programs that are tailored to the individual circumstances. I think that if you’re going to have such a program, it’s imperative to try to capture each arrangement in a detailed written description so that the expectations of both the firm and the lawyers are fully discussed and disclosed. I think that not only should the details of the arrangement be disclosed, but also any impact that it might have on the partnership progression for that particular lawyer should be discussed.
Although certainly each case is unique, there are numerous examples at Mayer Brown where people taking time off or being on a flexible schedule has not impaired promotion. Our premier example of that is our managing partner of 12 years, Deborah de Hoyos. She has taken off six months with each of her three children; and it was in the year of her last maternity leave that she made managing partner. Other examples include part-time associates who become full-time partners and part-time associates who become part-time partners.
In addition to having formal flex/part time programs, firms can provide support for their lawyers in recognizing the realities of modern living. For example, because backup childcare can ease the strain of balancing work and family, at many of the firm’s domestic offices we have backup childcare for our lawyers. Children ages three months to 12 years can participate. We are working to try to get that in some of the other offices, as well. Firm support for symposiums on these issues, panels of in-house attorneys, mentoring, helping women understand alternative work arrangement options–in sum, internal recognition of the issues and programs to address them are vital. And finally, not only is firm support important, but peer support is, too. I think the creation and acceptance of internal, informal networks of lawyers within the firm provides support and backup for women.

MR. CONNELLY: You talked about formalizing or putting in writing the policy so that it’s clearly articulated and everyone will understand it. How important is that to creating the right kind of environment, and is there a difference for a big firm as opposed to a smaller firm in terms of formalizing the policy?

MS. FROST: I think the most critical part is communication, so that everyone understands what they’re doing. I suppose the need for written policies may not be as critical in a small firm because the communication opportunities are so much greater; but I do think that sometimes committing things to writing, even in a small firm, helps solidify the commitment of both parties to a particular work arrangement. And I think that to commit it to writing and to re-explore it will help to flesh out some of the issues. I think it’s very valuable.

MS. LEMUTH: When an individual goes to a flex-time arrangement or a part-time arrangement, whether you’re in a small firm or a large firm, that needs to be committed to writing because both the law firm and the lawyer will have expectations and needs that must be met. It’s a negotiated contract. Both sides need to know what the expectations are and what their obligations are. We have found historically, over the last 12 to 15 years, that you really need to put that in writing, so that both sides know the expectations and the parameters of the attorney’s arrangement.

MR. CONNELLY: Does anyone who’s affiliated with a smaller firm have a perspective on the importance of putting a
gender initiative policy in writing for your firm?

MS. PAINE: I may be a representative of the smallest firm here today. Chamberlain, Hrdlicka has two offices, one in Houston and one in Atlanta; but we’re certainly a mid-sized firm. I think we have different pressures to deal with, in terms of the raw numbers of people we have to put on projects. We are more constricted and feel more pressure when one or two people need to take time off.
I think it is important to put a gender initiative in writing, so that the goal of fairness does not succumb to momentary pressures. We want to promote a culture of opportunity.
Whether you’re a mid-sized, small or large firm, the culture of the firm is perhaps its most important asset. And it’s important for not only the people who work there, but for the clients, as well. We want to continue the very collegial culture that we have and improve on it by formalizing policies that will help women stay and advance in the firm.

MS. JACOBS: I am Jennifer Jacobs at Bracewell & Patterson. One pragmatic retention issue that we find helpful is simply sharing the practical solutions that women have found while navigating practicing law and parenting. When I started practicing law, there were very few women in the profession who had a 15- or 20-year career with a law firm and had children during that career. The good news is that there are a lot of us who have now done that. At the law firms around this table, there are a larger number of partners who are women, who have been practicing law 15 to 20 years, and who have had kids throughout that career.
I think one thing we can do is make sure we have opportunities to share the decisions that were made, the childcare options that were explored or rejected, different choices that were made on how to balance your career and parenting at different stages of our children’s lives. That information is so helpful to women who are starting that path. I think we can make that journey a lot simpler.

MS. CASEY: What I’m hearing is that it’s not a “one size fits all” solution, that everybody needs to come up with something individualized for the different needs of that particular attorney or firm. But it sounds like we need to start with the communication of ideas and issues, making sure the firm is open to listening to the needs of younger associates, figuring out how to address their issues, and tailoring solutions to each of them. Those needs are constantly changing.
I know how hard it was from Tom Godbold’s experience to put something in writing for the HBA initiative that was an aspirational statement. The issues that need to be addressed have changed over the last 20 years, when in the 80s it was not unheard of for us to be asked about family planning. And now, there’s a whole host of other issues for women attorneys coming up in the ranks. We need to be flexible and we need to listen to what the younger women attorneys have to say and address the issues as they arise.

MS. RODRIGUEZ: Firms could probably do a better job of being more introspective. As we are losing these wonderful women attorneys, we should consider an in-depth exit interview, as many corporations do. What is it about our culture that helped you to succeed or not succeed or caused you to leave, or are there reasons you would have left, no matter what? Because it isn’t a “one size fits all,” if we all look more closely at why are we losing individuals, that might help inform this process going forward.

MR. COLEY: We actually started doing that at King & Spalding — exit interviews for all associates leaving. We have an attorney who is in an administrative role, and one of his functions is to perform the exit interviews. We get some great feedback from those interviews.

MS. LEMUTH: We seem to be focusing on associates, but one of the problems that law firms face, and to some extent corporations, is that we’re losing older people, as well. And there are different phases in our lives where we need to focus on other things. As an older attorney, I’m dealing with aging parents. So, many of the solutions that we can talk about and discuss relate not only to the younger folks starting out, but to us older folks who are at a different point in our lives. The solutions and ideas that we may come up with over this next year may help not only women, but men who are dealing with those same issues.

MR. CONNELLY: There are some firms who may well see the HBA Gender Fairness Commitment Statement as overreaching. What are some of the concerns that law firms and corporate law departments may have about that statement?

MR. TREECE: I think they may have a concern that it is a measuring rod for failure, and I think we need to communicate to them that it’s not. The commitment statement recognizes that the law profession has room for improvement. We can do more. We can do better. It’s a recognition of the very things that we’ve all talked about today, about how it makes business sense, how it makes cultural and moral sense, how it does all sorts of good things for the law firm and for the profession. We need to have people understand that this is a set of objectives.
We use the words “aspirations, goals” — these are things that we think are important for us to try to achieve. It is not something that is going to be used to create a “bad list” and a “good list.” It’s something that a firm can take internally and use like any other type of objective. So the gender initiative is about committing to trying to achieve something that we aspire to, that we think would be good for the profession and good for the firm.

MR. CONNELLY: What kind of role should be undertaken by a professional organization like the HBA to promote this initiative? Is there more that we can be doing or should be doing in this effort?

MR. TREECE: One of the things that the members of the task force are going to do is call the leaders of law firms and legal departments, and the leaders of our governmental organizations with law departments. We’ve heard today about the importance of networking and input and feedback, so we’re going to be communicating with them. Maybe we’ll hear something from somebody that will cause us to come up with a different way of expressing how important this is.

MR. CONNELLY: How can each of us, within our own firms and law departments, take the necessary steps to promote this initiative and to encourage the commitment that the HBA has announced in this initiative?

MR. AYERS: To me, this issue has both a theoretical component and a practical component. The theoretical component is how to increase awareness. It’s a combination of education, of gentle persuasiveness and the power of leadership by example. One of my favorite books is “The Tipping Point.” When you pursue this program relentlessly over a period of time, then we’ll reach the tipping point, if we haven’t already, and it will be much easier then to increase participation. As to the practical component, cheerful, faithful adherence by those who have signed the commitment and bragging about it, to put it bluntly, will help a lot.
Our firm did not sign the initiative lightly, but it was an easy decision for us because it played so readily into what we were already thinking and trying to do. But we take it seriously. It’s like any other commitment that we enter into. It’s important to us. I think communicating that sense of importance, doing so cheerfully and without grousing and wondering about whether it’s something that is good or bad, sends the correct message, both internally and externally.
We all meet people in the profession every day. If we talk about this initiative on an organized basis, I think we’re going to be surprised about how quickly the tipping point is reached, and we’ll be talking more about how to implement the actions necessary to achieve the objectives than whether it’s necessary to continue to work hard at increasing participation.

MS. FROST: We want to try to get more people to join us. We want more of the HBA, more of our community, to be willing to step up and say just what Howard said. These are firm values that we have and community values that
we have, and we’d all benefit from increasing the size of the vocal parts of our community.
I think one of the practical ways we can do that is to encourage our clients and other firms to sign up by, for example, arranging and publicizing events like firm- sponsored, signatory-only functions where signatory clients and signatory law firms get together for networking opportunities which would be an incentive to others to join. If we can give them another positive reason for wanting to get involved, that might be helpful or encouraging.

MR. AYERS: If I could follow up on some things I’ve heard from other firms who are not yet signatories. It’s a typical lawyer-like reaction – “okay, I’ve looked at that first paragraph and I’ve looked at our current firm demographics, and we couldn’t get from here to there in that time frame if our life depended on it. This is a recipe for criticism, humiliation and failure.” So, we have to overcome that concern in firms that are situated demographically such that they see it as a problem. The larger firms are not so much at risk because, typically, our demographics are already more conducive to the goals in the commitment statement. But the law firms that are smaller and don’t have the demographics, it scares them.

MS. HURWITZ: I do think there is a fear on the part of some firms that they just cannot meet all of the goals in the commitment statement and hence, it may be better not to sign it at all. We have to try to reassure them that this is not intended to be a contract, but rather a commitment to work towards an important goal. If we can shift to that view, where firms see this as a goal rather than something that is set in stone, then perhaps more firms will be comfortable making the commitment.
Frankly, I think the problem that we are addressing today is much larger than our individual firms. It is a problem that we have within the bar locally and nationally and I think we have an obligation to our profession to solve this for future generations, to try to eliminate this problem that we’re facing with women, losing so much talent and not being able to advance. Making the commitment will breed goodwill not only with attorneys already in firms, but also with those who are starting their careers and deciding which firm they want to join. New lawyers will be attracted to those firms that have acknowledged that a problem exists and committed to solving the problem.

MR. COLEY: We need to set up communication programs, not to force people to do it, but because it’s the right thing to do from a business perspective, it’s the right thing to do from a cultural perspective, it’s the right thing to do from a professional perspective. And the only way to really get this properly implemented is for people to buy into it as the right thing to do. If the firms are doing it only because they want to put their name on a list, we’re not going to get there. We need to convince people. It’s actually a pretty easy case. We just need to put communication projects in front of people to convince them that it’s the right thing, so that they want to do it rather than thinking that they have to do it.

MR. CONNELLY: I want to publicly applaud the task force leadership — Tom Godbold, Lynette Fons and Denise Scofield — for their efforts in moving this gender initiative forward. I want everyone to know that the Houston Bar Association and its board of directors is committed to continuing this initiative.

MR. GODBOLD: I wondered if I could turn the tables on you a little bit, Mike. Your law firm signed the gender incentive, right?

MR. CONNELLY: Yes.

MR. GODBOLD: How many lawyers does your law firm have?

MR. CONNELLY: Thirty-six.

MR. GODBOLD: Okay. And could you share with us some of the reasons why a firm of your size would sign and did sign?

MR. CONNELLY: Well, interestingly, we had some of the questions about the commitment that were articulated here because of our demographics. We happen to have a law firm that already has a substantial number of women partners. Frankly, we felt that we had already done a lot to meet those aspirational goals, and if we were going to be measured again, we weren’t sure if we were going to be changing that much over the next few years. But we came to the conclusion that it’s not a test. We’re not going to be graded on this. Whether you feel you’ve already met many of these goals or not, we need to be on this program and we need to demonstrate our commitment to these concepts and these principles.

MR. GODBOLD: One of the bigger takeaways I hope that we get from today is the fact that this is not a test. This is not going to be used to embarrass anybody, as we’ve said. It’s simply a way to get together as a profession in Houston and talk about these issues and, hopefully, do better on these issues. I’m glad you said that, Mike, and I agree wholeheartedly, that’s what it’s all about. It’s communication, not measurement, not criticism, but being positive in doing what we can to do better on these issues.

Special thanks to the court reporting firm of O’NEAL * PROBST * WELLS, LLC (713-521-1314) for providing transcription of this roundtable.

Firms and Corporate Legal Departments That Have Signed
the Gender Fairness Commitment Form
(as of January 10, 2004)

 
Abrams Scott & Bickley, L.L.P.

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, L.L.P.

Andrews Kurth LLP

Baker & Hostetler LLP

Baker Botts L.L.P.

Bracewell & Patterson, L.L.P.

Chamberlain, Hrdlicka, White, Williams & Martin

Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LP

Connelly • Baker • Wotring • Jackson LLP

Dinkins Kelly Lenox Lamb & Walker, LLP

Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.

Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP

Haynes and Boone, LLP

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

Jenkens & Gilchrist, P.C.

Jones Day

King & Spalding LLP

Levin & Atwood LLP

Linebarger, Goggan, Blair & Sampson, L.L.P.

Locke Liddell & Sapp LLP

Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw

Shook Hardy & Bacon, L.L.P.

Vinson & Elkins L.L.P.

2004 Gender Initiative Commitment Statement
< PDF - 168KB >

< BACK TO TOP >