Arbitration & Mediation

Diagnosis and Cure for BigLaw Layoffs? Revisiting the Gauntlet

By Victoria Pynchon

Below, an excerpt from my article, Revisiting the Gauntlet In Monday's Los Angeles Daily Journal (subscription required)

According to statistics being updated monthly at the "Law Shucks" Layoff Tracker  10 national law firms have each axed between 50 and 270 lawyers since the first of January. During that same time, half a dozen others have laid off between 25 and 50 working attorneys. Bloggers and legal pundits who have been predicting the demise of "Big Firm" practice for years have been reporting these numbers (along with last year's collapse of giants such as Heller Ehrman) with ill-concealed delight.

As the recession and its effect on legal practice deepens, it is time to revisit Lauren Stiller Rikleen's 2006 indictment of law firm management practices, "Ending the Gauntlet - Removing Barriers to Women's Success in the Law." Rikleen, the executive director of the Bowditch Institute for Women's Success and equity partner at Bowditch & Dewey, suggests that women lawyers are the canaries in the mine shaft of modern legal practice - sending unintended early warning signals to management of the threat its present inefficiencies pose to the entire enterprise.

"Ending the Gauntlet" was and is meant to counter the widespread belief that women leave BigLaw in outsized numbers because they "don't want to work as hard" or "are more dedicated to their families" than their male counterparts.

Statistics tell the tale. In 2005, two full generations after women entered the profession in droves, the Massachusetts Bar Association reported that while 32 percent of its male members earned in excess of $150,000 per year, only 12 percent of its women did so. Women were not only under-represented at the higher levels of compensation, they were also over-represented at the lower, with 75 percent reporting earnings of less than $101,000 per year compared with 47 percent of the men. Three-thousand miles away, in Washington state, a 2001 survey of private law firm compensation by gender showed that 77 percent of the highest earners (the top 25 percent) were men while 62 percent of the lowest earners (the bottom 25 percent) were women. Even more troubling, a 2004 nationwide study reported that the overall gap in earnings between male and female attorneys was 60 cents on the dollar, worse than in the workforce generally [this 2005 Forbes article says 69 cents].

Subscribers to the Daily Journal can continue reading here.  I'll post the full story after the DJ article runs.

For those following the unemployment statistics, take a look at this very scary chart or go to the extended entry.

Full post as published by Settle It Now Negotiation Blog on February 07, 2009 (boomark / email).