Legal Commentary

Huge thanks to Craig Ball -- and to the Women in E-Discovery's NYC Chapter -- for a wonderful lunch at the organization's January meeting -- where Craig and I spoke about how women can use e-discovery training to end run the "glass ceiling."

I'm in the process of writing about the event for the next issue of LTN -- and because we have recently merged the LTN and Law.com technology website, we have not yet completed building the archives, so I don't have public access yet to many LTN stories.

Therefore, if you will induldge me, I'm going to reprint my "Just Equal" column here, so I can link to it in LTN and folks will be able to access it.

I'll put it "behind the curtain," so just click below to "keep reading" to find it.

Just Equal

by Monica Bay

Recently, Chere Estrin (who is launching a magazine for women in litigation, with the sassy name, Sue) and I were cyberchatting about the thorny challenges that face women, minorities, gays and lesbians in the legal profession.

Recent reports in The National Law Journal (http://tinyurl.com/NLJdiversity) have been disheartening, documenting pay discrepancies, and little improvement in ladder climbing at BigLaw, especially for minority attorneys. Even more distressing ? the toooften- vitriolic comments on Above the Law (www.abovethelaw.com) and other blogs.

Estrin happened to notice that our September LTN was estrogen-free, and asked me about why there were no women's bylines.

"What do you think accounts for the lack of women writers, technology pros and other positions in legal technology?" she queried.

I was surprised, and grabbed a handful of issues to check my own stats. As editor of LTN for a decade, I have always had a fierce commitment to embrace diversity in all aspects of our operation. I also blog about this topic constantly on The Common Scold (www.thecommonscold.com) and EDD Update (www.eddupdate.com). My passion is shared by our leadership, one of the many reasons why I've stayed here for 23 years. Here's what I found:

? Ten members of our 38-member editorial advisory board are women. I rotate about 20% of members off every year to make room for new talent. But I have not had success attracting minority members, only one in the last few years. (Interested candidates, e-mail me!)

? Women are regularly featured as our "Up Close" profile, so far this year, in five issues.

? May's President's Corner was a female.

? In the last four issues, 10 women had bylines. Donna Payne writes her wonderful Test Drive column, featured in most issues.

? Over the decade, our unit has hired and trained many talented journalists, in cluding many women and several minorities.

Indeed, the foundation of LTN has been our keen belief that our profession is changing from being run like private clubs ? to a corporate model that values diversity and empowers everyone to do their best possible work. It's only good business to do so.

This is a core LTN campaign that I am proud to champion.

But it's obvious that our legal profession has a long road to go, and that there are no easy answers. Lisa Belkin, in her final Life's Work column (http://tinyurl.com/LTNBelkin) in The New York Times summed it up when she said that after a decade, she's left with more questions than answers.

There are so many nuanced factors that sabotage glib road maps: everything from balancing family and work; negotiating salaries; teamwork; effective self-promotion; leadership; and even ridiculous stereotypes (e.g., crying ruins a woman's career). And a whole lot of folks, myself included, have absolutely no interest in the lifestyle and sacrifices required to become and stay a BigFirm partner.

But there is no question ? racism and sexism remain deeply embedded in our profession. That simply must change. We must continue the dialogue, no matter how difficult. We must strongly support and mentor the women, minorities, gays and lesbians who are climbing the ranks of our profession.

Fortunately, there are good men and women genuinely trying to fix this. We simply cannot give up. We must use everything in our power to make it right, and just.