Legal Commentary

Bad news arrives from our colleague Vivia Chen, via The Careerist blog, regarding the 2010 survey from the National Association of Women Lawyers, which documents absoluty no movement of women into equity partner posts ? it remains at 15%, the same rate it has been for the last five years.

Women, she writes, are barely represented on influential committees at their firms, and there's not a single woman among the top 10 rainmakers. (The study looks at the 200 largest U.S. firms. Click here for survey data.)

What's not surprising to LTN readers who follow e-discovery staffing: NAWL found that 80% of Am Law 100 firms (and 50% of the second 100) employ staff lawyers (non-partnership track positions) -- and more than 60% are filled by women. These are jobs that by definition offer "little possibility of career advancement," Chen notes. (Minorities also tend to occupy these posts, which often do not include benefits.)

  In 2008, when the U.S. Census office reported depressing figures chronicling absurd gender pay discrepancies within the legal profession ? women are making only 51% of what men make in comparable jobs ?  I challenged "every GC, law firm managing partner, and legal vendor CEO to check their own employee records and remedy this."

It's unacceptable and an absolute embarrassment for the legal profession -- with all our self-righteous rhetoric about equality ? to produce such dismal statistics. We need to fix this, now.