I recently attended a dinner organized by the Law Society of Upper Canada for the managing partners of downtown Toronto law firms to consider the firms’ responses to the recommendations of LSUC’s task force on retention of women in private practice.
How to keep women in the profession is an issue with which the law society, and most law firms, have been grappling for years. The reasons for the exodus of women are complicated, and many of us have considered them and what to do about the problem at great length.
At the dinner, one of the benchers told a story about an associate who had just advised her that she was leaving the practice of law to raise her children. She had said that every day she went home and figured out how many of her jobs - wife, mother, sister, daughter, lawyer - she had failed at that day. Invariably, the answer was, too many!
I have come to the conclusion that, while law firms must have incentives to prevent women from departing, and that the costs of those incentives are, within reason, a business expense well worth incurring, there is precious little that we, as law firms, can do when a woman is grappling with whether to practise law or stay at home and raise her children.
The maternal instinct is, in and of itself, overwhelming, and for many women the only option is to sacrifice their career to it, at least for some period of time.
However, in a world in which the divorce rate is so high, it seems prudent for women to be self-supporting. And as the task force notes, the issue is not how to get women into law schools and articling positions or to become associates. We have all accomplished those tasks most successfully.
The issue is to how to bring women back to the full-time practice of law, how to engage them in the firm’s administration, and how to train them to be profitable lawyers and rainmakers after their children no longer require their substantial day-to-day attention.
Coincidentally, I also recently attended a talk given by Dee Dee Myers, former White House press secretary and author of a new book Why Women Should Rule The World. She is a terrific speaker, very entertaining and insightful, and while I have yet to have an opportunity to read her book (the title was intended to be provocative and controversial), her thesis is that if women ruled the world, everything would be different.
Her analysis goes like this: women will never be as good at being men as men. So, throw out the conventional wisdom that women can fill men’s shoes as capably as they can. I don’t know a woman who isn’t going to be perfectly fine with that insight. As most men know, women are not particularly interested in men’s shoes generally, or in filling them.
Her view is that women are hardwired differently. We respond to circumstances differently. By way of example, in stressful situations it is her view that men either take flight or stand and fight. Women, on the other hand, prefer to clean up the mess - literally - we clean the room, make fresh coffee, and sort everything into piles. Then, we contact a group of our confidantes, to discuss and resolve.
It is her view that the world (and in this regard, she is particularly interested in the political world), should embrace the way that women react to events, and that, but for certain external and internal obstacles, there is no reason why we shouldn’t stand side-by-side with men in resolving the world’s problems and leading the next generation.
What are the internal obstacles? In a nutshell, women don’t take ownership of their successes the way that men do and, correspondingly, are less likely to reach for the brass ring. What are the external obstacles? Myers is of the view that women are judged differently from men.
Women have higher standards to live up to in respect, first of all, of our appearance - we are always seen before we are heard. And second, that for reasons that she does not understand, people think that little children and big jobs don’t mix well. And yet, it is her contention that nothing makes women better qualified, and better trained, for management roles than raising children.
Raising children teaches women to prioritize, not to sweat the small stuff, to seek balance, and, perhaps most importantly, gives women conflict resolution skills that make women better at their jobs.
If Myers is right - if failing to find ways to reintegrate women back into the workforce is a tragic loss of talent - and I, for one, am certainly of the view that that is the case, then how do we create incentives for women to return to work that make financial sense? How does a law firm, taking into consideration both biological and cultural realities, ever hope to succeed in re-engaging its women, and at what cost?
These are the essential questions with which all businesses, and in particular, all law firms must grapple. And the issue is particularly difficult given the generally reported low levels of job satisfaction amongst lawyers.
There are no easy solutions to these kinds of issues, but I do hope to have the opportunity to explore some of the financial options in greater detail in the future. The one thing of which I am certain, however, is that flexible work arrangements that are financially sensible are only part of the solution to the problem.
The longer-term solution involves creating a work environment in which lawyers are engaged, financially and emotionally. I know that self-esteem is connected to not only a job well done, but a job for which satisfaction will grow as time goes on.
And since comprehensive job satisfaction has to be the strategic objective of any firm for all of its lawyers, it should be possible to meet the objective of retaining lawyers generally while simultaneously achieving the firm’s overall strategic objectives.
The devil, of course, is in the details.
Lisa Borsook is the managing partner of WeirFoulds LLP, a Toronto law firm specializing in litigation, corporate, property, and government law. She also chairs the firm’s leasing practice group and can be reached at [email protected].
