She Thinks

Women in the Boardroom

2012-02-09T19:59:00.000-08:00

I spent a couple of hours today at a great Women in the Boardroom program here in San Francisco. The panel facilitator Wendy Beecham moderated three wonderful speakers, Nilofer Merchant, Linda Amuso and Barb Stinnett. Each of them had terrific advice for business women interested in Board service, or simply interested in how public company boards recruit members. If you get a chance to attend one of the events the group has planned this year, jump on it!

ABA Business Section, Business Law Fellows, Ambassadors and Diplomat Programs

2012-02-02T20:14:00.000-08:00

Greetings, Diversity Committee Members. Please see the following and pass along to any of your peers who might be interested.

The Section is Now Accepting Applications for the Business Law Fellows, Ambassadors and Diplomat Programs.

The Fellows, Ambassadors, and Diplomat Programs are designed to involve young lawyers, lawyers of color and lawyers with disabilities in the substantive work of the Section. The Section funds the two-year term of five Fellows, five Ambassadors and one diplomat, including their particpation in three Section meetings each each year (Spring Meeting, Annual Meeting and a stand-alone committee meeting). Applications are due April 27, 2012. Please encourage any of your qualified committee members to submit an application to one of the programs. For more information about the programs, please click here. http://apps.americanbar.org/dch/committee.cfm?com=CL715000

The Power of Cookies

2012-01-18T20:18:00.000-08:00

So today marks 18 years at my current law firm, that seems such a long time...

Although I had been at another firm for the first 5 years of my legal career, the day I started at this firm was the day I really started thinking about client development. I didn't know much back in those days, but I did know three things: One, I wanted to do work for charities and their donors. Two, I wanted to make a living at it. Three, to do that I was going to need to develop a client base. Since my new firm didn't have an established practice in the area, I was going to have to figure out how to leverage the existing relationships in that firm and convince the partners that my little practice area would be viable. In the early days my marketing focus was on public speaking, for local bar associations at first, then for the state bar. I also was very fortunate to team up with some other professional firms working in the nonprofit sector, and we jointly started offering informal, educational, client-focused "roundtable" seminars for nonprofits.

Coincidentally, today also marked the launch of my 16th year doing those seminars. I've hosted 4-6 of these seminars each year, generally in the late afternoon on a few Thursdays March through May and September through November. In the early years it was a lot of work to come up with the speakers, print the invitations, assemble the mailing lists, and copy the written handouts (remember, everything was hardcopy back then). Today, the operation is pretty seamless, invites go by email, twitter and linked in to a much, much larger distribution instantaneously at no cost. I've heard many times from my client base that my little corner of the market looks forward to receiving the invitation each spring and fall. My staff has been wonderfully supportive, either because they believed in my mission, or perhaps they were just looking forward to their share of the delicious cookies I always served.

I suppose the current version of a seminar series is the legal blawg, focused on a particular practice area, and were I to be starting a practice today I suppose I might just go the electronic route. Perhaps that is more effective than an old fashioned meeting with a walking, talking, breathing speaker or two. But I don't plan to discontinue my roundtables any time soon. Yes, I am a believer in the new information technologies. But there is also a place in the client development tool chest for good old fashioned, face-to-face, educational seminars where clients and friends can network and learn something new from eachother.

And share some good cookies.

Modest Resolutions, and (Older) Age

2012-01-10T21:15:00.000-08:00

Longtime readers remember my resolutions over the years. Last year I focused on getting the billable hours on my time sheets. The year before I promised to focus my marketing efforts. And in 2008 I had the most ambitious list ever. This year? Honestly, I have only one resolution, and so far (10 days in!) I have kept at it. I am going to take my joint supplements every day. That's pathetic, I know, but I have this theory that if I can move my joints without pain, I might sleep better. If I sleep better I should be more pleasant in the morning. If I am more pleasant in the morning, I can achieve all those lofty resolutions from prior years. So you see a little chondroitin and glucosamine just might be the trick for getting my practice to the next level.

Well, it's a theory anyway. I'll let you know how it works out.

More Inspiring Bits from Notable Women

2012-01-06T15:16:00.000-08:00

I was out on vacation for much of the second half of 2011 so didn't collect quite as many quotes as usual. I did find a few useful gems:

"Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is agift. That's why we call it 'The Present'."
— EleanorRoosevelt

"It's always been my feeling that God lends you your childrenuntil they're about eighteen years old. If you haven't made your points withthem by then, it's too late." BettyFord

"I've learned that people will forget what you said,people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made themfeel." MayaAngelou

"I have no regrets in my life. I think that everythinghappens to you for a reason. The hard times that you go through buildcharacter, making you a much stronger person." Rita Moreno

"I would just like people to think of me as a judge whodid the best she could with whatever limited talent I have to keep our countrytrue to what makes it a great nation." Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

"Macho does not prove mucho." Zsa Zsa Gabor

"It doesn't matter what you do in the bedroom as long asyou don't do it in the street and frighten the horses." Mrs. Patrick Campbell

"Impartiality suggests that we shouldn't begin from ourown point of view, that we should have principles that apply absolutely toeveryone. But the trouble is that humanlife is based on the personal point of view." Martha Nussbaum

Happy Holidays

2011-11-23T13:58:00.001-08:00

Faithful readers, I am about to leave for a long vacation, I'll be away from my desk until January 3. I suspect I'll not be blogging once I disconnect from the legal profession later today. I plan to spend a good portion of that time at parties and holiday events, which reminded me that December is usually a good time to be comment on the hazards of drinking and lawyering. A recent post at Above The Law described an innovative on-line support for lawyers with substance abuse problems, and noted that

Actually, attorneys overindulge a lot. A Guardian story from Saturday said, “Research suggests 15-24% of lawyers will suffer from alcoholism during their careers.” That’s almost a quarter of the profession, and a lot higher than the general population.

Why are lawyers so hammered all the time? Our own Elie Mystal has one theory: “If doctors or pilots drink, they kill people. If CEOs or accountants drink, they lose tons of money. If lawyers drink, they… have to proofread their work in the morning? Lawyers drink because they can, if you could drink more, you probably would.” Roger Sterling from Mad Men would most certainly agree.

I think that's a little flippant. Addicted lawyers have an awful lot to lose and can hurt a lot of people. For more thoughts and some resources in the various states, there are some resources here.

I wish you all a healthy, joyful holiday season. Enjoy the parties, network your little hearts out, and I'll see you in January.

Brands, Revisited

2011-11-19T18:30:00.001-08:00

My marketing folks are hounding me for an update of my marketing plan, a raft of holiday networking events are around the corner, and all I can think about is vacation. The last thing I want to ponder at the moment is my personal "brand" as a lawyer. But that's the lazy side of me. Holiday cards, client gifts, and social events are ripe opportunities for reinforcing the professional image I want my network to remember. And that network includes current and prospective clients, as well as current and prospective referral sources (which is, well, everybody). Some good ideas can be found in What is Your Personal Brand and is it Effective? by Katy Goshtasbi, and at some of my previous posts on branding and networks.

Hard Work or Luck? or Both?

2011-11-07T20:38:00.000-08:00

Last week Jim Collins and Morten Hansen reported on their recent research on luck for the New York Times in What's Luck Got to Do With It? Their analysis of "return on luck" and what differentiates those who take advantage of luck--good or bad--is worth pondering. They wrote

"When we examined less successful companies, we saw a generally poor overall return on luck. Some of the comparison cases had extraordinary sequences of good luck yet showed a spectacular ability to fritter that luck away. When the time came to execute on their good fortune, they stumbled. They didn’t fail for lack of good luck. They failed for lack of superb execution."

Can you think of any lawyers who struggle to develop a private practice, despite having a great education, good community or family networks, and the ability to be a good lawyer? I can think of a few who have a spectacular ability to fritter luck away.

On the other hand, what about those who face extraordinary bad luck and yet make superbly good lemonade?

"They use difficulty as a catalyst to deepen purpose, recommit to values, increase discipline, respond with creativity and heighten productive paranoia — translating fear into extensive preparation and calm, clearheaded action. Resilience, not luck, is the signature of greatness."

It still comes down to preparation and action. More of my thoughts about luck were in an earlier post, Luck. At the time I ran a survey in the sidebar to see whether my readers agreed. Just for fun let's see what kind of responses I get to this one.

The Witching Hour

2011-10-31T12:40:00.000-07:00

I was somewhat taken aback by the headline article in the ABA Journal Weekly Newsletter last Friday: Not One Legal Secretary Surveyed Preferred Working With Women Lawyers. At first I thought not to dignify the headline with a response. I try not to comment on materials or authors when I would be drawing attention to a provocation intended to promote an author or sell papers, rather than to support women lawyers. So this morning I asked my secretary what she thought of the article. And then it dawned on me: The one really good use of the survey by Chicago-Kent law professor Felice Batlan, and the ABA's report, is to stimulate constructive conversations between women lawyers and their secretaries. There are a lot of reasons why women lawyers and their secretaries may not get along, and I don't know whether the survey results are based on some fundamental flaw in women lawyers, their secretaries, or both.

But I do know that good communication between my secretary and me is the one thing that is most responsible for more than a decade of working together. So for all of you out there who wonder what to do with the survey results and the chit chat that will inevitably flow around the legal world from it, here's my recommendation. Send the link on to your secretary and ask her (or him!) what s/he thinks of the article. And then listen carefully to what you hear.

Happy Halloween!

Tips on how to be Dispensable

2011-10-28T19:53:00.000-07:00

I should apologize to you all for my delinquency in writing posts. Too much work, blah, blah, blah. So here is a classic from about two years ago, first published on December 1, 2009. I tried to think of some ways to improve on it, but I haven't thought of anything useful to add.

December 1, 1988. Twenty-one years ago today I started practicing law. Along with I think 6 or so other newly-minted associates, I showed up at the law firm that had promised me a job some 10 months earlier, and started life as a licensed lawyer. Reflecting on this little milestone in my professional life, it seems appropriate today to share some tips that might not be obvious to young people just entering the world of private practice. Loads of young lawyers learned that they passed the Bar exam last week, and are now entering the legal workforce as full-fledged lawyers.

I'll share some advice based on things I've learned from my own painful missteps, as well as those of others I've watched over the past two decades. I am pretty sure I was the world's dumbest new lawyer, or at least the most naïve. True, I've watched a few compatriots make even dumber, or at least far less politic, moves, but overall, I do think I was on the short list of those least likely to succeed back in 1988. So here's my advice on how to be dispensable:

1. Leave the Hard Work for the Partner. In retrospect, this was one of my early, best lessons. Shortly after I'd started work, the partner who hired me asked me to write an application for tax exemption for a client. I dutifully filled in all the facts and then handed it to him with the legal analysis section blank. I actually said, out loud: "I left this part for you to do since you obviously know the law far better than I do." His bewildered stare said everything, and bless his soul he didn't utter a word (nor did he fire me, but some partners would have written me off then and there). I constantly see other young lawyers make the same mistake as I did, though most don't actually articulate it quite so clearly. Yes, the partner or assigning attorney actually wants you to do the hard work. The legal analysis. The creative problem solving. The drudge work of making sense of the facts, the documents, the witnesses, the inconsistencies, the missing information. Otherwise, you're just a research clerk. Useful, perhaps, but not a lawyer.

2. Preserve your Work/Life Balance at All Costs. No matter what the rest of the team members are doing on your case or the long hours the rest of the lawyers in the office are putting in, your quality of life is more important. If you really believe that, you should start looking for another job. Yes, it is true that life balance is important. But if you find yourself in a job environment where the partners are in the office for 12 hour days, along with the senior associates and the rest of the professional staff, and you find yourself arriving at 9 and leaving at 5, you'll soon be on the short list of folks who aren't mission critical. Unless you have an approved part-time work schedule in a truly enlightened firm, you aren't likely to be viewed as a committed team member. The good news is, there are places where everyone works 9 to 5, and that may be where you belong. It's not a judgment of your value as a human being or the quality of your work as a lawyer, it's just reality in most law firms. If you aren't willing or able to work at the same pace as the rest of the team, it won't last.

3. Leave Ethics to Others. Many young lawyers seem to forget most everything they learned preparing for the professional responsibility portion of their Bar by the time the ink on the exam has dried. A quick route to personal disaster, or at least to an embarrassing client situation, follows the path of least resistance: leave client conflicts and professional ethics concerns to the partners on the case. When new parties come into a case, when new transactions start, when previously allied business clients become antagonistic, when a mistake made on a case might be considered malpractice: a useful lawyer of any vintage deals with the conflicts question personally. It's not just the partners' responsibility.

4. Unless you have Actual Client Contact, You Don't Need to Worry About the Client. Sure, sometimes the assignment really is a cut-and-dried research project where facts about the client, the transaction or lawsuit, the property at issue, aren't really germane to what you need to do. But you'll be unlikely to really add value if you don't take some time to understand the big picture. And here's another secret for you: your client base includes the assigning partner or more senior attorney. Yes, believe it or not, your success depends on your ability to be assigned to cases by the attorneys in your firm. Treat every one of them as if they were your client. The work habits you show to the assigning attorneys demonstrate how you will treat paying clients.

5. Treat Deadlines as Suggestions. We all know that partners set deadlines just to create a sense of urgency. Filing due dates can usually be extended, or somehow someone will get a continuance. It's not all that important. Any young lawyer who has such thoughts cross her mind will soon find herself on that short list for pink slips. Even if the due date you've been given clearly doesn't relate to any particular deadline, the useful lawyer treats it as set in stone, and makes sure the work is done a day ahead of time, just in case the kids are sick and she has to stay home, there is a mass transit strike, a hundred year flood, a blizzard, and a hurricane on the due date. As my son told me he learned years ago at music camp: To be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late, and to be late is unacceptable. The assigning attorney may have his own reasons for setting what seems to be an arbitrary deadline. Ignore it at your peril.

I could go on with a few other tips I have on my outline for this post, but I think it's a little more useful to leave the newly licensed barristers with a sense of anxiety because they haven't been given the rest of the secrets. So here's one final tidbit I'll share today: If you don't know the answer, or understand the problem, go try to figure it out yourself. If you do, you'll actually be a practicing lawyer, not just a research assistant.

As the world's dumbest associate to actually succeed in private practice, I can honestly tell you it is possible to learn to be useful. And now you know some of the secrets. Best of luck to you.

Cynthia

Supporting Women Across Professions

2011-10-17T20:16:00.000-07:00

Lately I've enjoyed following feeds and news about women leaders in various professions. Here are some of my favorites:

Catalyst, Inc "Changing Workplaces, Changing Lives"

Astia "Funding, Growth and Leadership for Exceptional Entrepreneurs."

Female Equality Matters --the name says it all

Women Who Tech "Brings together talented and renowned women breaking new ground in technology who use their tech savvy skills to transform the world and inspire change"

I am sure there are more good ones out there, and I'll update this list as I come across them.

Social Media Hot Topics

2011-10-13T20:04:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I've been hosting seminars for clients for some time. Sometimes my topics flop, and sometimes they are hot. This season, social media is a hugely hot topic with our nonprofit and food industry clients. Gee, I wonder why.

If you are not yet on the social media bandwagon, consider yourself a dinosaur. Really, I mean it. If you don't understand the power of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube, you're way behind the game. I am not saying you need to actively use those in your legal practice, and actually I do think that for most lawyers those are not tools that are going to be much use in reaching new clients. But they are key to understanding your customers. Look at the wave of businesses using these tools. Sure, there will be false starts and odd marketing uses for these things. But they are also part of the social and business fabric, and unless you are winding your practice down, you've got to understand how these tools affect and are used by your clients.

Does this mean I think you should tweet? That you should put up a Facebook page for your firm? That you need 500+ connections on LinkedIn? No. But you should be following all of your clients on Twitter. It costs you nothing, and the information you will see will give you enormous insight into what is important to your clients. As for Facebook, if your clients sell anything, they are almost certainly using Facebook. You can get a pretty good understanding of Facebook if you just put up a decent personal page, find a few innocuous friends (come on, I know you have at least a few) and then "like" a few of your clients.

I suspect I am preaching to the choir because most people who read blogs are already pretty savvy about social media. But for those of you who have not taken Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn seriously, it's fine with me if you just stay under that rock. The rest of us will have some fun, make some friends, and conquer the world.

Burns & Levinson hosts US Federal Judge Nancy Gertner

2011-10-03T20:14:00.000-07:00

Burns & Levinson, a Boston-based law firm, recently hosted its second successful event on September 13, as part of the Burns & Levinson Women’s Forum. The evening featured a discussion with retired United States Federal Judge Nancy Gertner. Fresh from the bench, Justice Gertner spoke candidly of gender dynamics in the courtroom, of challenges facing women trial lawyers and of the responsibility of those who have attained positions of power to speak up and continue to work for equality of opportunity for their junior colleagues.

Judge Gertner noted that, too often, when attorneys from private law firms would appear in front of her the junior attorneys who actually did the work would sit behind their senior male colleagues who would argue the motions. “Currently 15% of women in the legal profession are equity partners,” says Gertner. “My generation felt like we were carrying the banner for everyone. Today’s generation of women attorneys need to keep that banner held high.”

Ellen Zucker, a partner at Burns & Levinson, commented on the night: “Smart, impassioned and now freely irreverent, Judge Gertner lead an inspiring conversation about women in the law. While we might miss her as part of the judiciary, this talk confirmed (if there was any doubt) that she has a lot to offer the legal community in this next phase of her professional life. We were delighted to have her join us.”

The Burns & Levinson Women’s Forum holds regular events around topics of interest to women attorneys. Initiated by the women partners at the firm, the Burns & Levinson Women’s Forum is designed to offer a place for conversation among experienced women lawyers on topics of importance to the women in their profession in their communities.

The next event is scheduled for late January 2012 and will feature a discussion about women in-house counsel.

This event is invitation-only and limited to senior women attorneys; click here to inquire about being added to the invitation list.

Women's Equality Day

2011-09-26T20:37:00.000-07:00

This post was first published on August 25, 2010, in celebration of Women's Equality Day last year on August 26. It is fitting to ponder the advances women in the United States have made in the last 91 years, as we watch Saudi Arabia move in the same direction. Today, Saudi Arabia’s ruler, King Abdullah, said that, beginning in 2013, women will be appointed to the shura council, which offers policy advice to his regime, and that in 2015 women would be allowed to vote and run for municipal councils.

It's been a fascinating mothering week. Monday morning my darling daughter bounded out of the car and into the whirlwind of change that envelopes high school freshmen girls. She leapt into the school year with as much enthusiasm as she had for kindergarten.

Monday evening she gushed with excitement about all the good things to come, and announced that high school is the best time of life, and that nothing could ever be better than turning 16 and life would just be grand all through high school. Having had a less than pleasant overall high school experience myself (that's another story), I quickly shot back that if sixteen is her best year she'll have had a very sorry life, and that perhaps she should consider that the late 40's were more likely the prime of one's life. She rolled right over my grumpinees and then said with absolute certainty, "Well, I know 18 is the best because then you get to vote." I mumbled more middle-aged disagreement but she wasn't listening anyway so I just let it go.

But she was right about that, and I've thought about it quite a lot the last day or so. How easy it is to take for granted the gifts of our culture, and the struggles of our sisters to bring women in the US this right. I'm sure you all know that tomorrow, August 26, is Women's Equality Day. It's the 90th anniversary of the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote. Here's the language from the Joint Resolution of Congress, 1971, designating August 26 of each year as Women’s Equality Day:

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have been treated as second-class citizens and have not been entitled the full rights and privileges, public or private, legal or institutional, which are available to male citizens of the United States; and

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have united to assure that these rights and privileges are available to all citizens equally regardless of sex; and

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have designated August 26, the anniversary date of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, as symbol of the continued fight for equal rights: and

WHEREAS, the women of United States are to be commended and supported in their organizations and activities,

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that August 26th of each year is designated as Women’s Equality Day, and the President is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation annually in commemoration of that day in 1920, on which the women of America were first given the right to vote, and that day in 1970, on which a nationwide demonstration for women’s rights took place.

The National Women's History Project has more about the history of Women's Equality Day on their site.

Darling Daughter, you are right. Turning 18 is great. I'll be there to light the candles for you, and to take you to register to vote.

Book of the Month Club Meeting

2011-09-19T20:27:00.000-07:00

Probably the greatest benefit from my recent long vacation fromwork and email is my increased attention span. Thirty-one days away from the on-demand culture of email, phone calls,and the inherent multi-tasking of my typical work day allowed for a concentrationspan longer than 30 seconds, which meant, among other useful things, that Icould actually finish a book. So I didread several fun novels, actually read more than just the headlines of newsarticles, and watched entire movies without jumping around.

Long time readers will remember that years ago (before myattention deficit disorder became acute) I posted a few book reviews for youall. With my return to sanity and anexcellent reference from a colleague, last week I read The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law, which is Mark Herrmann's labor of love. I know it's not news, the book was published in 2006 and probably every lawyer in the world knew about it before I got it last week. But for you newbies who've come into practice since then (as well as those of you who have been in trial since then or otherwise, like me, completely out of the loop most of the time), get your hands on a copy as soon as you can. If you are lucky enough to be reading this before you start at your first law firm job in the next few, all the better. You have time to read now, which you won't have once you start working.

If you (like me) find it hard to read an entire book and just want the most important pieces, the chapters on How to Fail as an Associate and TheCurmudgeonly Secretary are indispensable. Mark Herrmann is not kidding nor is he being sarcastic. Every word is true, and you should assumethat every partner you work for and every secretary you work with has exactly the same perspective on your work.

As a not-so-new lawyer, I felt abundant vindication in thosetwo chapters as well. I wish I couldhand a copy of the book to every young lawyer I know, so that they will realizethat I'm not the only one that goes ballistic about typos, unclear thinking(and writing) and that tendency of young lawyers to leave the hard questions totheir supervisors.

Even though the Guide focuses on a litigation associate's dailytasks, transactional lawyers can learn quite a lot from it, and the advice onhow to write a memo applies equally across practice areas.

The only place where I beg to differ is the advice onhow to Dress for Success. You've seen myviews on that elsewhere in this blog; after you read his chapter we can have abook club discussion comparing and contrasting where his views diverge frommine.

So, let me know when you'd like to meet for the next book clubmeeting. You know where to find me.

Just for Fun

2011-09-15T22:38:00.000-07:00

Party in the USA

I could write something silly connecting this video with law firms but I won't bother. It's just fun to watch.

Enjoy.

Trends in Swim Attire for Professional Women

2011-09-12T22:44:00.000-07:00

So last weekend I was sitting with a number of my women partners chatting about what women wear--to firm swim parties. It's no longer a real problem for me, my kids are old enough that they are more likely to rescue me from a water feature than the other way around. But I do sympathize with my colleagues who have young kids that actually want to get in the water at a firm social function that revolves around a pool, lake or ocean. So what to do? The options seem to be (1) wear a swim suit, (2) bribe your partner into taking the water related responsibilities, thereby relieving you of any need to wear a swimsuit, (3) attend the function fully clothed, let the kids play in the water all they want with the expectation that you may have to jump in fully clothed at any moment, or (4) wear a swim burka . Option 1 works only if you are Reese Witherspoon; Option 2 might work, but beware the cost. Option 3 seems the best bet, you might end up looking a bit foolish when you jump in, but depending on the age of your kids, you could look like a selfless hero. Unless your kids are under 12 months old, in which case the hero approach probably won't work. So that leaves the "full cover swimwear" option. They look pretty stylish, I wonder if they have petite sizes.

Little Bits of Wisdom on Event and Seminar Planning

2011-09-08T21:01:00.000-07:00

Well here we are, the kids are back in school, everyone's summer vacation is over, and except for retirees (and those nearing retirement) nobody is taking vacation from now until Thanksgiving. So it's a great time to plan business development and client focused events, right? Not necessarily. It's a great time to host them, but not a great time to plan. The planning needed to be done in July, so invites could go out this week, hitting desks just as folks have cleared the clutter and are organizing their fall schedules.

I've planned and hosted about six events per year for the last twenty years, and while I'm not ready to take down my shingle and be an event planner, I have learned the hard way a lot of do's and don't's for professionals who regularly try to bring together clients and like minded professionals. Here is my short list:

1. Plan ahead. Speakers, locations, topics, and invitation lists should be ready a month before the invitation needs to be distributed. That leaves plenty of time for proofreading and fine-tuning the outreach.

2. Calendar wisely. Obviously, don't plan anything in July, August, November or December unless you're okay with a very low turnout. Similarly, check for the beginning and end of the school year in your community, even if you don't have kids yourself. A large proportion of your target market probably has school age kids, and they will probably think beginning and end of school year events are more important than your educational seminar or special event. Know when spring break falls. Check for major religious holidays. Don't bother planning anything the week before and after Easter, on Passover or Yom Kippur, or Ramadan, if your target market includes anyone adhering to those religious traditions. Also consider sports. I once had a seminar scheduled the same afternoon as game four in the World Series, and wouldn't you know the home team was playing at home down the street that afternoon. Oh well.

3. Snail Mail. I know, several years ago we were all hot to send everything by email. But the reality is we are now so inundated by spam and bacon that we've asked for, it's hard to be sure that all that effort to publicize an event doesn't just go to a junk mail or spam folder without being opened. I always think that if I am going to the trouble of putting an event together, the expense of sending a tasteful paper invitation is well worth the effort.

4. Proofread. Nothing shows lack of attention to detail more than typos. Be sure to get multiple sets of eyes on the electronic and paper invitations, and include some fresh reviewers who haven't been so closely involved in the drafts that the won't notice the mistakes.

5. Mailing Lists Need Constant Cultivation. Developing a mailing list isn't something to be done in a rush, just when the event is being planned. Contact lists take constant, year-round attention. When you pick up a business card, in addition to adding it to your contact list, figure out which of your mailing lists the person is also interested in, and make sure the name goes there, too.

6. Use Social Media. Along with distributing invites to your mailing list and posting it on your website, consider using your Twitter feed, LinkedIn and other appropriate sites to advertise. I think those distribution channels are probably not very useful in bringing people who aren't already on the invite list to the event; nevertheless, they are excellent follow up reminders to your colleagues and contacts who might appreciate the reminder if the email and paper invites weren't enough. Effective advertising is repetitive. Get your message out as many times, and in as many forums, as you reasonably can.

7. Market Internally. Especially in larger firms where it is so hard to know what the other attorneys practices are about, it's important to approach other attorneys as a target market for the event as well. If possible, arrange for continuing education credit for your seminar. Attorneys in the firm, and outside it, are excellent referral sources. Don't waste the opportunity to bring them into the conversation.

8. Make it a Tradition. The best attended seminars and most effective events are those that happen on a regular schedule, are consistently worth the attendees' time, and have become a fixture. This takes time and commitment. Consider it a learning experience for the first few years, and don't abandon the effort without giving it a number of tries.

9. Ask for Feedback. Be sure to distribute evaluation forms to those who do attend. We can't learn anything without feedback. And use that as an opportunity to ask for input about what the audience wants to hear about from you.

10. Offer a Quality Event. Last, but not least, be sure that the presentation or panel offers the best quality experience possible. Take home materials are, in my view, essential. Yes it is good to be green, but people who make the effort to travel to your event in person need paper in front of them to write on. An effective Powerpoint presentation can be useful, but if you aren't particularly creative or fluent with the medium, consider sticking to your knitting. Powerpoints that are amateurish or boring can work against you.

So that's my little bit of wisdom on the topic. Now I just need to get my own invitation out, it's a week late this year due to my extravagant vacation. Watch my Twitter feed and LinkedIn updates if you aren't already on my mailing list, or send me your contact info and I'll be sure you are added!

Freaky Friday

2011-08-04T22:32:00.000-07:00

So my daughter and I are watching Freaky Friday from 2003, for the umpteenth time, and I am once again thinking it would be very cool to be Jamie Lee Curtis, no matter what age. Fortunately my daughter is wise enough not to want to be Lindsay Lohan.

The plot, as you know, explores the amusing consequences when a mom and teenage daughter switch bodies. You can see the trailer here in case you've forgotten the story. I hated my high school, but I do think my daughter's school seems awesome and great fun. Except for the culinary class (my family keeps me away from all combinations of heat sources and food), drama (I can't act to save my life), and math (thank god for calculators and spreadsheets, since math is not something I can even begin to do anymore except for calculating tips, of course I can do that. Not so sure about calculus anymore....) And god forbid I'd have to go to PE and run a mile once a week.

Which puts me in mind of an interesting way to think about associate reviews. Wouldn't it be interesting for a senior partner to have to spend the day in an associate's role, and vice versa? Let's try that tomorrow: all partners switch tasks with their associates, and let's see who cries uncle first!

Marriage and Career Advice for Women Lawyers

2011-08-03T21:16:00.000-07:00

I'll be out on vacation much of this month so will be re-posting some of the gems from the last three years. When first published on April 26, 2010, this post generated the most comments I'd ever gotten on my blog. Be sure to read them, too.

It's been a while since I've become incensed at some trivia published in The Recorder, but last Friday's column by Sabina Lippman on Closing the Rainmaker Gap really hit a nerve. I simply must vent.

Ms. Lippman starts out in a promising fashion by summarizing some well known facts—that women lawyers drop out of private practice at a higher rate than men, that the further up the food chain one goes in law firms the fewer women there are, and that women with children are far less likely to be represented at the highest income levels than men with children, or even women without children. She discusses a number of possible rationales, but sadly gives some credence to the bizarre marriage advice trumpeted by Linda Hirshman, a "former trial lawyer, law professor and author of "Get to Work".

Hirshman's thesis, as described by Lippman, is that women lawyers:

• should tell their male life partners (what we used to call husbands) before getting married that they will keep working after having children,

• should negotiate an agreement to a 50 percent division of labor for housework and childcare—and to turn aside suitors who are not on board, and

• should marry men who are their income-earning peers, so that the inevitable "how are we going to do this" conversation doesn't have an obvious verdict.

What a convenient way to leave the responsibility for insidious discrimination at the foot of the victim. Wow. I can see male partners and comp committees everywhere feeling quite excused for any part they might play in the lack of progress by lawyer moms in their firms—it's really the fault of the woman for not negotiating a better package with a more suitable spouse who would allow the wife to put work before family so that she could be a rainmaker.

The logical extension of that theory of course is that all lawyers who want to be rainmakers should marry spouses who make less, and will be willing to sacrifice their careers for the rainmaker wannabe. Oh, wait, the men have known that for years, that's why most of those who have children also had stay-at-home wives when the children were young. Women need to be given the same career advice memo the men got: get yourself a good wife. In fact, working moms have long known that what they really need in order to meet the dueling demands of career and family, is a loving, reliable, devoted helper.

That's all true, but it should not be used as an excuse for the legal profession that has ALSO limited rainmaking opportunities by maintaining the other impediments that make up the glass ceiling: fewer mentors, an old boys network, social clubs and structures that until very recently excluded women, patterns of prejudice that kept women from succeeding by punishing professional women for being too approachable (and hence not credible), or too assertive (and hence bitchy). And so on.

I hope young lawyers (men and women) everywhere will see the Lippman/Hirshman approach for what it is—an excuse to not work for more equitable opportunities for business development by women, and downright bad marriage advice.

My advice? Marry someone you love without regard to their income potential, work as hard as you can at your profession, treat your colleagues fairly and leave any environment where your peers aren't doing the same.

Ok, I feel better now. Hope you do too.

Hair, Toilet Paper and Other Random Thoughts on Client Development

2011-07-31T18:36:00.000-07:00

I loved The Junk Drawer's post yesterday, Catholic Veil Fashionista. It brought back fond memories of the parish in North Dakota where I went to parochial school around 1969-72 or so, I don't remember the exact dates. I do know that I was there for first through third grade and I had to go to mass every morning and yes, wear toilet paper on my head if I forgot my mantilla. So that's a neat thing about surfing the internet these days; subscribe to enough blogs and you'll be reminded of the most ridiculous things from your past, from time to time. I think there is probably a photo of me in my Mom's album that shows me wearing a nearly identical uniform and silly hair fashion.

Another random thought: I think I am going to have a boatload of ripe tomatoes when I return from vacation. Remember back in early June when I told you about how excited I was that I finally had planted a garden? A few months later and there you are, enough tomatoes to supply the entire neighborhood. I sure wish that client development activities brought about new work that fast. I don't recall ever planting the seeds of a client relationship and having the work come in within a few months. I do recall some relationships where the first connection was more than a decade before there was a chance for me to do meaningful work for a contact. Patience I guess is a virtue, and all that.

You might wonder, what does client development have to do with pre-Vatican II Catholic fashion and my childhood? Yes, yes there is an obvious connection. Of course you have to be out there in the world talking to potential clients, and you have to be able to demonstrate that you do fine work. But most of all, you have to do everything you can to help them remember you when they do need your help. Maybe an image of me in a plaid uniform with toilet paper on my head will be the thing that helps someone remember to call me when they want to make a planned gift to a Catholic charity. That would be well worth putting that image in the consciousness of my faithful readership.

For more random thoughts on business development, here is a collection of my published thoughts on the topic. I continue to believe that the essential path to more women in leadership in law firms is one with more women leading their firms in client originations. So get out there and plant some seeds.

A Perspective from the East Coast

2011-07-23T12:02:00.000-07:00

A guest post from Lisa Cukier at Burns & Levinson:

As She Think’s June 1 post “Inch by Inch, Row by Row” pointed out, the unfortunate lack of women holding board room positions has not improved. And in the legal field, a recent study pointed out the stalled nature of women becoming partners as opposed to their male peers. Over in Massachusetts, the rate of female equity partners per firm is “higher” than other states, but this difference is still minimal and hardly combats the problem. A group of leading women partners at my firm, Burns & Levinson, got together to address this issue.

We recently kicked off the Burns & Levinson Women’s Forum last month with a discussion featuring Supreme Judicial Court Associate Justice Fernande “Nan” Duffly. The forum came out of a desire that the women at Burns & Levinson had to share their experiences and create a dialogue for the greater community about the issues facing women in law today.

The forum with Justice Duffly was the first of quarterly events focused on topics of interest to women lawyers. Burns & Levinson hopes that discussing women’s advancement in the profession and issues of social policy, politics and the media with the rest of the community will prompt change or at least further awareness and examination. Each event will feature a presentation or roundtable discussion facilitated by role models: strong women in positions of leadership in the law, judiciary, politics, business or academia. The next event is scheduled for September 13, 2011 and will feature the then retired Federal Judge Nancy Gertner discussing gender dynamics in the courtroom. We hope that the continuing forum will bring more attention and support to the issue—and maybe even some male allies.

Many thanks to Burns & Levinson. It's nice to see efforts made by firms across the country to address the challenges in advancing women in the profession. Other firms with similar programs are welcome to post their event through She Thinks, just send me a message.

Unlimited Vacations?

2011-07-20T08:29:00.000-07:00

Geez it's hard to get work done and off my desk so I can go on vacation. Based on my vague recollections of pique over the past few weeks, I think about half of the emails I'm sending to keep projects moving are bouncing back with the happy news that the recipient is out of the office on vacation and completely unreachable until sometime in the middle of my planned break.

The Wall Street Journal this morning observed that there seems to be a trend, albeit a small one, toward "unlimited vacation" policies. My current employer used to have a variation on that policy--back in the 80's and 90's the unwritten policy was that attorneys could take as much vacation as they liked as long as it didn't exceed the time taken by a senior partner, who notoriously took huge amounts of time off. Alas, modern employment law scotched that policy some time ago. I never actually took advantage of it anyway, since with three young kids at home it was all I could do to meet my annual hours requirement just taking time off for kid's sick days, doctor's appointments and that sort of stuff. So I never have gotten into the habit of a regular vacations, and I've not been "unplugged" from the office for more than an afternoon in about seven years.

I'm not advocating my approach, but I will observe the reality that the modern work environment for lawyers who are working moms allows for precious little opportunity to take a real two-week (or longer) vacation from the office. I think this is true for lawyers (associates or partners) who are dependent on other rainmakers for work, but it's also particularly true for lawyers who are responsible only to their own external clients. It's really, really tough mentally to tell your client base that you'll be unavailable for a long stretch of time. In an era where most clients get anxious if an email or voice message is not returned the same day, I wonder how they'll react when I actually put up an out-of-office message that I'll be unavailable for a whole month.

Well, it's time to find out. I am indeed going to take my once-a-decade break in August. My husband is going to great lengths to make sure that I won't check my work voice messages, and my secretary and partners have promised to cover everything. Maybe I'll have a practice to return to, and maybe not. I am so ready for a break that I'm pretty sure I'll be okay with either outcome.

In the mean time, if you are one of my colleagues who is currently on vacation and have put my project on hold until you get back from your vacation, either get back to me next week or don't bother until September. I promise I'll get everything done then.

What's for Breakfast?

2011-07-11T19:58:00.000-07:00

I first published this post on March 11, 2009, which was some time ago. I thought it would be a good one to re-post for my newer readers. Peggy's book is one of my favorites on people skills.

This month's book club selection is The Hard Truth About Soft Skills, Workplace Lessons Smart People Wish They'd Learned Sooner, by Peggy Klaus (it's in my Amazon list—see the sidebar). Peggy's writing style and sound advice make this an accessible primer on the people skills that are necessary for everyone who works with other people.
I really enjoyed Peggy's style. She has organized eight chapters around the basics: self control, getting the job done, listening skills, learning from constructive criticism, office politics, branding and bragging, diversity, and leadership. While whole books have been written on each of these topics, (actually, whole shelves of books on each), this lesson book gives an excellent overview of the skills with enough practical advice to help focus in on the areas that are most important. Each chapter is then segmented into half a dozen or so segments, perfect little bites of advice, just enough to read and then ponder for a while.

Three of the segments were particularly interesting to me. In the chapter on getting the job done, Peggy writes that "whining is for kids, and even then, no one wants to hear it." It's a pep talk, a good shake, and a sharp reminder to shape up. It reminded me of my mom's favorite saying: build a bridge and get over it.
The gender and diversity chapter includes a very, very important piece of advice for women: don't take it personally. Putting it very bluntly, the segment reminds women that they must never, ever cry in a professional setting. Never.

But my favorite part of the book is the advice on branding. We all develop a brand, either with intention or by chance. Think of yourself as a cereal brand, she writes. This little bit of advice reminded me of a school project each of my kids did in about third or fourth grade. The elementary school teachers included it in the curriculum as a fun way for the kids to get to know each other at the beginning of the year, build self esteem and I suppose practice their skills with scissors and glue. The kids had a great time cutting out magazine pictures of superheroes, writing fanciful ingredient lists, and using adjectives to describe their talents and aspirations.

So, I am going to design my own cereal box for me. My brand will include a statement of my core values and my twenty-five word description of my law practice, and probably a snappy photo or two. And the color of the box will, of course, be rose pink.

Image: http://free-stock-photos.com/

Summertime, and the Livin' is Easy

2011-07-06T21:45:00.000-07:00

I've commented a few times before about appearance in the law office, what constitutes appropriate attire and even occasionally the injustice of it all...why should women be judged by what they wear? Why should professional women have to wear masculine suits to be respected? What's wrong with peep toe shoes? All these are very good philosophical questions suitable for discussion over a few glasses of wine with other professional women.

But I have to admit that I do eventually draw the line on some choices that women lawyers seem to make on hot summer days. How do you know the heat has gone to your head and the cute outfit you thought would be cool is, well, actually too hot for the office? Here are some clues:

--Do your undergarments show? NEVER OKAY in a work setting. Bra straps and camisole straps are cute on teenage girls flaunting the dress code in high school, and that's what you look like when you show up at your law firm dressed that way.
--Are you dressed to visit the beach right after work? PROBABLY NOT OKAY. Unless your office is on the beach, I suppose.
--Capris or shorts? NO. Sorry, it just doesn't work for me.
--Way cool shoes are okay, but flip flops ARE NOT.

That's about it for my list of absolutes; otherwise, wear what's comfortable, professional and stylish. Knock 'em dead with your style.

The Gold Standard

2011-07-01T10:34:00.000-07:00

The Women in Law Empowerment Forum on June 14 released the initial list of law firms qualifying for its new Gold Standard Certification — a designation for firms that have integrated women in top leadership positions and compensated them well.

The organization invited more than 300 firms with 100 or more attorneys to apply for the certification by June 1, and 32 met the criteria. You can read their full report and the list of certified firms here. The certification process went beyond simply looking at the percentage of women employed at law firms. It focused on whether they are significantly represented in positions of power and among the top-earning attorneys.

To be certified, firms had to meet at least three of the six criteria:

Women account for at least 20% of equity partners.
Women represent at least 10% of firm chairs and office managing partners.
Women make up at least 20% of the firm's primary governance committee.
Woman represent 20% or more of the firm's compensation committee.
Women make up at least 25% of practice group leaders or department heads.
Women represent at least 10% of the top half of the most highly compensated partners.

That last criteria is disturbing, though. WILEF noted that 84% of the applicants met the standard that women constitute at least 10% of the top half of the highest paid partners. In my view that is because it's a pathetically low standard. Ten percent of the top half of highest paid partners? Why not 50%? It seems to me all the standards should expect representation that is commensurate with the percentage of law school graduates who are women. We've accounted for half of the graduating lawyers for decades; the goal should be equivalent representation on all markers of success. To hold firms to a lower standard really just allows for business as usual, and that's not good enough.

2012 Spirit of Excellence Award Call for Nominations

2011-06-28T20:03:00.000-07:00

Don’t forget the deadline for the 2012 Spirit of Excellence Awards is July 15, 2011. The ABA Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession established the Spirit of Excellence Awards to celebrate the efforts and accomplishments of lawyers who excel in their professional settings; personify excellence on the national, state, or local level; and who have demonstrated a commitment to racial and ethnic diversity in the legal profession. Many of our awardees have been nominated by local, state or other national bar associations. Therefore, we invite you and your affiliates to consider nominating a trailblazer in diversity!

Download a nomination form and submit it electronically at spiritawards@americanbar.org However, if the materials are more 15 Megabytes (MB) in size you may need to send the materials in separate parts.

Spirit Nominations are due July 15, 2011.

The Spirit Awards luncheon will be held at the 2012 ABA Midyear Meeting in New Orleans, LA.

Oh, and One Other Thing about CPRC Rule 2-100

2011-06-26T21:43:00.000-07:00

I meant to include this in my Friday post. Apparently it's also not obvious to many lawyers that the California Rules of Professional Conduct (Rule 2-100) and the ABA Model Rules ( Model Rule 4.2) also prohibit a lawyer from sending an email to the opposing party, if the party's lawyer has cc'd her client on a communication. Now, in the olden days, if I sent a letter on paper and noted that I'd sent a copy to my client, no one would interpret that as giving permission to the opposing counsel to contact my client directly. Why is it any different by email? I've had lawyers tell me that since I've copied my client on an email, "reply to all" in response is fine. Seriously, friends, it's not.

Lawyers Can't be Friends

2011-06-23T21:06:00.000-07:00

I don't often write about issues relating to attorney ethics and their professional duties, but not once but TWICE today I seemed pulled into the orbit of the Rules of Professional Conduct. The first incident seemed fairly academic at first--a partner just for fun circulated a copy of the recent San Diego County Bar Association Legal Ethics Opinion 2011-2 which interprets California Rule of Professional Conduct 2-100 which says, in pertinent part: “(A) While representing a client, a member shall not communicate directly or indirectly about the subject of the representation with a party the member knows to be represented by another lawyer in the matter, unless the member has the consent of the other lawyer." Seems like a fairly straightforward rule, and one with fairly obvious results when a lawyer uses Facebook "friend" requests to surreptitiously gain access to the opposing party's employee's statements.

But later in the day I realized Rule 2-100 is apparently not all that obvious in its intent for some lawyers in this state. A lawyer representing the opposing party in an active, adversarial matter announced a few hours before a long scheduled meeting of the principals, that she (the lawyer) intended to attend as well. When the meeting was cancelled because the other party's counsel couldn't make the meeting on such short notice, the lawyer blithely commented that she hadn't intended to attend as her client's lawyer, just as her "friend." So how can that violate the Rule?

So now my weak little mind is thoroughly confused and I have lost all ability to tell when a lawyer is a lawyer or a friend, or a "friend." I always thought it was pretty obvious before today. But apparently lawyers who know and pal around with their clients can just be friends when convenient. On the other hand, lawyers who are friending me on Facebook are actually looking for dirt.

Not that I have that many friends anyway--my kids laugh at my paltry Facebook 35 Friend count (and that includes my kids and my dad). I pretty much turn down all friend requests from lawyers, clients and referral sources, not because I don't like these people, just because I don't want to have to bother with lists and privacy settings and all that jazz. So I don't seem all that friendly to them, and I suppose I'll eventually develop a reputation as a cold and distant type who doesn't have many friends. I just don't feel bad about it, though, since the word "friend" now means something entirely different than it did when I was younger.

Quotes January - June 2011

2011-06-20T21:47:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to share with you again my most recent collection of quotes. I hope they inspire you as they have me.

"We know that silence equals consent when atrocities are committed against innocent men, women and children. We know that indifference equals complicity when bigotry, hatred and intolerance are allowed to take root. And we know that education and hope are the most effective ways to combat ignorance and despair." Gabrielle Giffords

“Romance, like the rabbit at the dog track, is the elusive, fake and never attained reward which, for the benefit and amusement of our masters, keeps us running and thinking in safe circles.” Beverly Jones

“Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths.” Lois Wyse

“Instead of getting hard ourselves and trying to compete, women should try and give their best qualities to men - bring them softness, teach them how to cry.” ~Joan Baez, "Sexism Seen but not Heard," Los Angeles Times, 1974

“Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist if at the same time she manages to be a good wife, a good mother, good-looking, good-tempered, well-dressed, well-groomed, and unaggressive.” Marya Mannes

"What it comes down to, ultimately, is love. How can anything bad come out of love? The bad stuff comes out of mistrust, misunderstanding and, God knows, from hate and from ignorance." Elizabeth Taylor

“If you think somebody cares about you and believes your life is worth saving, how can you give up?”
Geraldine Ferraro

“But how does a person learn to see herself as nothing when she has already had so much trouble learning to see herself as something in the first place? It’s so confusing. You spend the first half of your life learning that you are something after all, now you have to spend the second half learning to see yourself as nothing.” Lydia Davis

“The first wave women lawyers would advise both men and women to throw themselves into causes greater than their own advancement, to live fully, and to find pleasure in their work.” Barbara Babcock

“Men are irrelevant. Women are happy or unhappy, fulfilled or unfulfilled, and it has nothing to do with men.” Fay Weldon

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
Marie Curie

"Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you're wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore." Lady Gaga

Pro Bono Check In

2011-06-10T20:31:00.000-07:00

We're just about half way through the calendar year, so for those of us who are obsessed with setting and meeting New Year's Resolutions or other goals, it's a good time to do a personal check in.

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Yes, I know a huge number of my fellow travelers on this planet don't plan more than 3 minutes into the future and set their personal goals accordingly--this post IS NOT FOR YOU. I know you didn't set any goals for the year and so you'll see no point in seeing whether you are there yet. So just move on to your next blog.
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BUT FOR THOSE OF YOU who are nutty like me and actually measure performance against personal goals, this is the time to see where the hours have gone. If you are short on your pro bono commitment, there's actually precious little time left in this year. Considering that there's very little opportunity to pick up anything new in August (everyone is on vacation), and the 5 weeks from Thanksgiving to Christmas are basically useless for anything except finishing year end work, there are actually only 18 productive weeks of the year left.

So if you are looking for a pro bono project, I'd suggest you start with your local bar association. There is no shortage of people who need legal advice but can't afford it. The ABA Center for Pro Bono also has a lot of links to places where you can find work.

Inch by Inch, Row by Row

2011-06-01T23:08:00.000-07:00

I am so excited--after a three year hiatus from vegetable gardening, I am finally back in my house and have planted a great vegetable garden! I put in six tomato plants, including the usual Early Girl, a beefsteak variety, something in purple, a lovely yellow, and a couple of others. I also have cucumbers started, four varieties of peppers, and a hill of pumpkins. I definitely have gardening on my mind, and am not (yet) overwhelmed by weeds, bugs, heat, and other things that make gardening a chore. For another month or so I can just enjoy the anticipation: I'm optimistic that by August, I'll have a bumper crop of vegetables to share.

Speaking of progress an inch at a time: according to Catalyst, women and minorities have barely made progress in holding board seats on Fortune 500 corporate boards in the past six years. Reporting on a study released last month, they noted:

In the Fortune 100, between 2004 and 2010:

Men still dominated boardrooms. In 2010 they held 82.0 percent of board seats; in 2004, 83.1 percent.
White men have actually increased their share of board seats in corporate America—from 71.2 to 72.9 percent. Minorities and women shared the remainder, with very few seats occupied by Asian Pacific Islanders, Hispanics, or minority women in particular. With the exception of African-American men, who lost seats, the percentages have not changed notably since 2004.
More specifically, African-American women held 2.1 percent of seats; Hispanic women held 0.9 percent; Asian Pacific Islander women held 0.5 percent; African-American men held 4.2 percent; Hispanic men held 3.1 percent; and Asian Pacific Islander men held 1.7 percent
Although women gained 16 board seats—7 occupied by minority women—the overall 1.1 percentage point increase over 6 years was not appreciable.

Fortune 500 boards were less diverse than Fortune 100 boards.
Men held close to 85 percent of all board seats. White men dominated the board room, holding 77.6 percent of board seats. Minority men held 6.8 percent. White women held 12.7 percent. Minority women held 3.0 percent.
More specifically, African-American women held 1.9 percent of Fortune 500 board seats; Hispanic women held 0.7 percent; Asian Pacific Islander women held 0.3 percent; African-American men held 2.7 percent; Hispanic men held 2.3 percent; and Asian Pacific Islander men held 1.8 percent.
Approximately one-half of Fortune 500 company boards were composed of 20 percent or fewer women and/or minorities.
Women and minorities were significantly underrepresented in Fortune 500 board leadership positions. White men held 94.9 percent of board chair positions.
There was not a single Latina lead director or board chair.
In 2010, 15 companies achieved broad board diversity: each of the major U.S. Census groups was represented in their boardrooms.

I suppose the philosophical approach is to patiently work the corporate garden inch by inch, row by row. Those who can till the fields, obviously, predominantly white men, will have to be the ones to do most of the gardening here. There are certainly many, many qualified women and minorities. Those current board members and shareholders who have the power and opportunity to nominate board members need to be reminded that women and minorities are ready, willing and able to serve on corporate boards. The representation of women and minorities on corporate boards is not going to increase dramatically in the next decade, if history tells us anything. But hopefully we can make it at least another percentage point forward. Is that asking too much, or too little?

Remembering our Troops

2011-05-27T10:20:00.000-07:00

In honor of our military veterans, I'm reprinting below a message from ABA President Steven Zack calling for legal help, and providing some resources for lawyers who want to get involved.

Dear Colleagues:

On this Memorial Day, the American Bar Association is calling on all members to assist in a critical effort to support our nation’s veterans. Service men and women have devoted their lives to our country and to protecting our freedom. Now, we ask you to donate your time to assist them.

Veterans face a wide array of legal issues created by their unique circumstances, including challenges in obtaining medical care, disability benefits, reemployment rights, as well as help with consumer, housing, criminal and family law matters, but often are unable to afford legal counsel.

There are many ABA programs making an indelible difference in the lives of our nation's veterans. Our Coordinating Committee on Veterans Benefits and Services web portal provides an entry point for attorneys seeking program information and volunteer activities.

The ABA Commission on Homelessness and Poverty partnered with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Veterans Affairs to launch a national pro bono project providing critical legal assistance to our country's more than 100,000 homeless veterans. This initiative is cited as Signature Initiative #1 in the Administration's plan to end homelessness.

The ABA Commission on Law and Aging has provided four capacity-building mini-grants to non-profits and bar associations to recruit attorneys to provide veterans with pro bono legal assistance. This effort has allowed us to develop VA-accredited video training materials and webinars on veterans’ benefits.

The ABA Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice's Veterans Committee works alongside important groups like the National Veterans Legal Services Program and the Department of Veterans Affairs on efforts to improve administrative procedures in the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC). Current efforts are aimed at methods to streamline the appeals process, eliminate lengthy delays in decision-making, and reduce the number of remands to the Board. Proposals for expanding the jurisdiction of the CAVC to provide for de novo review of fact finding by the Board as well as the Federal Circuit, and to provide class action authority for the CAVC are under development.

These ABA programs along with a number of important state and local bar association programs are only effective with the strong commitment of volunteers. We ask that you consider giving your time to aid veterans. To volunteer for an ABA program, visit www.americanbar.org/veterans or send an email to volunteerforveterans@americanbar.org. For a list of programs you can volunteer for in your area, view the Directory of Pro Bono Veterans Resources.

We encourage you to get involved by serving those who have served us.

Sincerely,

Stephen N. Zack
President

Just for Fun--Penguin Cam

2011-05-20T16:41:00.000-07:00

Thinking About Starting a Blog?

2011-05-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered what it is really like to write a blog/blawg? The best description I've read of what it's like just came across my desk in A Blogger's Reflection by Kevin LaCroix, who writes the D & O Diary, A Periodic Journal Containing Items of Interest from the World of Directors and Officers Liability, with Occasional Commentary. Congratulations, Kevin, on reaching the five year milestone!

He observes, however, that

The actual blog content is only a small part of the operation. The fact is that I am for all practical purposes in the publishing business. I am not only responsible for content, but I am the copy editor, the fact checker, the proofreader, the typesetter and the art editor. I am the research department, the customer service department, and the subscription department. I am the managing editor, the business manager, and the chief operating officer. With all of these duties, the process of maintaining the blog takes an insane amount of time.

and then he notes

Another problem is that the blog has required me to dwell among the demons of technology. No one would ever believe (except perhaps another blogger) how many weird technological challenges I have had to confront. To cite just one example, one day out of the blue, for no apparent reason and without any warning, our firm’s IT manager changed the IP address of the server on which I housed all of the self-hosted documents to which I had linked on my site. That meant that every single one of the hundreds and hundreds of links on my site to self-hosted documents (pleadings, case decisions, etc.) was broken. I was on suicide watch for several weeks. I eventually repaired the links in the most recent posts but the links in many older posts simply don’t work, and at this point, alas, probably never will again.

You really should read his entire post on the topic if you are at all interested in blogging. All of Kevin's comments are right on target. His blog is an excellent resource, and the scope of his reach is testament to how well he works his craft. But even without having that sort of readership, writing a blog can be incredibly fulfilling. I'm only approaching my third anniversary this fall, and I have a way to go before I reach my millionth reader, but I enjoy it just the same. Just like Kevin, I get more out of it than I ever imagined I would when I began.

So if you like writing and think you might enjoy blogging, give it a try. But just don't keep any part of it on your firm's server.

Proactive Messaging--Overcoming Misconceptions for Working Moms who are Lawyers

2011-05-15T19:11:00.000-07:00

Many of you working mom lawyers I am sure are familiar with the feeling that no matter how hard you try to keep your professional colleagues informed of your commitment to practice, someone will always doubt it. It's a by product of the maternal wall, stereotypes, and prejudgments that stick with working moms.

Recently I've heard it from several different partners at my firm that people would accommodate my schedule since I don't work on Fridays. Isn't that considerate--except that I have never in my career regularly worked a four day work week, and I've never told anyone I don't work on Fridays. Yet the myth persists.... and it's not because my billable hours are low (they've been more than anyone in my department for the last ten years!) My youngest child is 16 (YEARS, not MONTHS), and except for the family leave I took when we first brought her home, I have worked a full time schedule ever since. Sure there are Fridays when I'm not in the office, but that is as likely to be due to travel to a bar association meeting as it is in the hopes of catching a long weekend once in a great while.

I think there are other working moms who struggle with overcoming similar misconceptions. I'd love to hear from you, and hear any strategies for correcting the record. All I've been able to come up with is a good-humored banter back about how much I would like it were that the case, or that it is remarkable how many hours I manage to work in a four day work week.

Or, perhaps, I should post my schedule in Haiku:

Yes, I work Fridays
Mondays, Tuesdays, Weds, and Thurs,
And Weekends, Got it?

Awesome Haiku

2011-05-10T09:24:00.000-07:00

Here's an incredibly fun site: Supreme Court Haiku, The Law of the Land in Seventeen Syllables. Houston Lawyer Keith Jaasma brilliantly crystallizes his thoughts in a magnificent collection of Haiku on Supreme Court decisions and the Justices who decided them. It's the most entertaining legal reading I've come across in quite some time. And he's expanded his reach with both Facebook and Twitter pages.

I've commented a few times in the past about how blogging can be an effective tool for marketing. But it only works if you like to write and if you have an inspired topic. Keith seems to have found a niche for himself that may or may not lead to new work. But if it's fun, supports the practice in some way, and gives the writer something to talk about at networking events, then it has served its purpose.

Here's an index of my early attempts at Haiku. There was a theme in all those, although it's probably not apparent to any of my readers and none of them were particularly good. But with Keith's great lead, I realize what I really need is a catchy and fertile theme to keep me going. Stay tuned, I am sure I'll come up with something. Perhaps Haiku on tax provisions? Marketing for lawyers? Women lawyers? Hmmmm.... I'll keep working on it.

Happy Mother's Day

2011-05-08T21:39:00.000-07:00

To all the working moms out there, keep the faith, there will be days when things aren't so tough. Like today--breakfast in bed, slept 'til noon, cut roses in the garden, played with my horses, both sons called home and the daughter refrained from snark pretty much all day.

Tomorrow, though, it's back to work. The bus dev agenda this week is almost as intense as last week (hosted an event at the firm one evening and attended a fancy schmancy gala on another, which explains the need to sleep-til-noon today). This week calls for just a day trip to LA to do a 2 hour conference presentation and meet with a referral source. And Friday there's another awards gala to attend. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy these things when I am working the crowd and meeting new and interesting people. But it is hard and time consuming to add on top of a regular work week.

The tough thing is that these events generally come along in one of two ways. Conferences and speaking opportunities are planned months ahead of time, and of course the calendar always looks clear so it's hard to say no, I think I'll be too busy. Other events, like galas and client sponsored dinners and the like, are opportunities I just can't, and don't want to, pass up. I can't say I'm too busy for those either, no matter how busy the work load is at the time.

Which all goes to my main business development point today: You do have to get out there and network no matter how busy you are, or you think you'll be. A rainmaker attitude prioritizes the good venues no matter the cost. in time or money. A minder or grinder lawyer thinks of marketing and business development is something to do in spare time, with spare change. Which do you want to be--finder, minder, or grinder?

Sage Law Marketing Advice

2011-04-30T22:52:00.000-07:00

It's not often that I mention consultants here, and it's particularly rare that I refer my readers to consultants that I have not personally met. However, I'm making an exception today because Sage Law Marketing has some nice, concise advice that perhaps points out the obvious, but hey, for a lot of lawyers I know, the obvious isn't quite as obvious to them as it is to those who do market themselves well. So, just to pique your interest, here is Sage Law Marketing's list of the top 10 biggest mistakes lawyers make in marketing, or, perhaps to give it a positive spin, the top 10 things a lawyer should do if he or she does NOT want to have a solid book of business:

Mistake #1 They don't market when they are busy.
Mistake #2: They don't have a "reputation building" plan.
Mistake #3: They don't treat their referral network as an asset.
Mistake #4: They don't sell clients on what they have already sold them.
Mistake #5: They don't market themselves inside their own firm.
Mistake #6: They only market to clients when they are working with them... or when they are trying to sell them something.
Mistake #7: They assume potential clients will value their expertise.
Mistake #8: They expect the client or prospect to do too much of the work.
Mistake #9: They focus on the wrong end of the pipeline.
Mistake #10: They don't market to people who rejected their proposals.

How many of these mistakes have you made lately?

Own Your Space... and Your Location

2011-04-27T11:11:00.000-07:00

With all the talk lately about smart phones tracking your every move, and data aggregation by social network sites, the world seems to be falling into two camps: those who are are horrified at the imminent loss of personal privacy, and those who realize notions of privacy are gone already, so don't worry, be happy. As an adult, it's not such a stretch emotionally to conclude that there are some things beyond my control, and so this loss is not such a big deal. As a mom, though, I realize its probably not responsible parenting to abandon my teenage child and let her figure it all out on her own, make value judgments on what to share and how to use technology, and at the same time stay with her peer group in the online world. Although Own Your Space won't solve my philosophical issues about my decisions that affect my privacy, it does speak to my teenager in a language that is understandable to that demographic. Creator Linda McCarthy has done a fabulous job with this book, available free as a download. I highly recommend it to all parents of teens and precocious younger kids who are managing their own online presence. Some younger kids and older adults might need help with the vocabulary, but readers between 15 and 25 will find it a pretty accessible resource.

Dress for Success

2011-04-22T11:42:00.000-07:00

The Women In Law Empowerment Forum along with Dress for Success are reaching out to women lawyers who are interested in supporting DFS's Power Walk in early May. WILEF is a sponsor of the Dress for Success Power Walk initiative, a wonderful opportunity to bring together professional women for an empowering morning supporting disadvantaged women in the US, Canada, and London. Walks are scheduled in the following places:

United Kingdom- London
Canada- Vancouver, Regina

United States:

CA – Los Angeles, San Francisco
CO – Colorado Springs, Denver
FL – Palm Beaches
GA – Atlanta, Savannah
IL – Chicago
LA – New Orleans, Shreveport-Bossier
MA – Springfield, Boston
MD – Baltimore
MO – St. Louis
MS – Jackson
NC – Charlotte, Raleigh/Durham
NJ – Hamilton, Jersey City, Madison
NY – Brookhaven, New York City
OH – Cincinnati, Columbus
OK – Tulsa
PA – Hershey
RI – Providence
TN – Memphis
VA – Norfolk

The mission of Dress for Success is to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.

Dress for Success empowers women to make healthy choices at work and in life and The Power Walk for Dress for Success plays a crucial role in ensuring that women understand the need for a well balanced lifestyle. Consider forming a local walk team, joining an existing team or become a "virtual walker." Visit The Power Walk for Dress for Success website to get started and to find the location and date for the scheduled walk in your area. Most are scheduled for May 7, but some may be on other dates, so check the website.

Meanwhile, Across the Pond, What should Women Lawyers Wear?

2011-04-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

I don't usually like to encourage people to read the ABA's weekly attempt to foment insurrection, but this week's summary of the dust up from an Allen & Overy email on appropriate professional attire is just too good to pass up. Although as a management matter much could be said about Allen & Overy's decision to convey the message as they did, what I find most interesting, and I think will be most helpful to readers, is the lengthy chain of comments from brilliant and thoughtful women and men, as well as comments apparently written by a few neanderthal men who have managed to remain in the population. I hope you enjoy the comments as much as I did.

Woman Lawyer

2011-04-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

Here is a must read for you: Professor Barbara Babcock's just published biography of Clara Foltz presents a compelling read that chronicles the history of an amazing woman and lawyer. There's something for every woman lawyer in this story: business development strategies and methods of political persuasion; work/life balance and what to wear; when to work for free and when to sue a client for fees. Clara was instrumental in her day in speaking out on the obligation of the profession to serve those who can't afford counsel. And of course work/life balance was as much a concern for her (she was a single mother of five) as it is for any of us. Reading her story makes me wonder why I've ever thought we modern women lawyers have any challenges at all. There are a number of reviews of the book on line, in case you want a second opinion on whether this book is worth buying.

If you are lucky enough to be able to meet the author on her book tour, then you are really in for a treat. Professor Babcock is an icon for women lawyers in her own right.

Bully for You

2011-04-04T21:27:00.000-07:00

My horse is a bully. He's been very full of himself lately, and since he's quite a bit bigger than I am and outweighs me by more than 1000 pounds, I tend to be intimidated by his pushy behavior. My trainer/psychoanalyst/sports psychologist/partner-in-crime insists that to train a young horse properly, one must become the boss mare and push back on the bullies. Sadly, that is not really in my nature, at least with respect to horses. So I've been pondering whether it is easier to modify my personality, or my horse's. Or to, well, just walk away and let someone else deal with him until he grows up.

I had the distinct displeasure lately to observe men bullying other men, which is not nearly as entertaining as watching a herd of horses go at each other. Since I really didn't have a dog in the fight (sorry for mixing species here, but you know what I mean), it was easy to be an observer and not get caught up in the emotion. Most of my colleagues responded similarly, and those who had to engage in the conversation with the bullies in the room were consummate professionals. The folks who lost decorum, using rather hostile language for the circumstances, completely misunderstood the context of the discussion, and since they couldn't persuade anyone of anything, they proceeded with hostility rather than constructive dialog. After a while their shrill voices were just ignored.

A lot of lawyers also seem to adopt bullying as a negotiating strategy because it can work to their or their clients advantage, especially when the opponent is known to be non-confrontational. Sadly, it's often not effective to engage the bully in a conversation, work out a compromise that solves the problem, and otherwise use professional, respectful approaches to problem solving. The choices seem to be to walk away, or find someone else who is equally bullying to take on the matter. Personally, I know it is my preferred style to walk away from a hostile conversation.

I'm not so sure that either gender has the corner on the market for bullies--Peggy Klaus sure sees plenty of women professionals who bully. Although it's not always easy to spot a bully negotiating style, there are some good resources for understanding negotiating styles and effective responses. See, for example, Difficult Conversations, which I reviewed a while ago.

It's also pretty clear to me that constructive dialog with Willy just isn't going to work, and peppermint bribes are ineffective too. Since I really don't want to walk away from him, I guess it's my personality that will have to change. If I can do it professionally, I suppose I can change my approach to conflict with horses as well. But it might take me a bit longer than it took me to learn to deal with difficult lawyers. The horses are bigger.

Go Out and Play

2011-03-31T18:37:00.000-07:00

Every one needs to play. Find a mud puddle and enjoy.

Free Teleconference on Women in Law Firm Leadership

2011-03-24T18:03:00.000-07:00

You are invited to participate in a one-hour teleconference on women and leadership.

April 6, 2011, Noon - 1:00 Pacific Time

Featuring:
Keith Wetmore, Chair, Morrison & Foerster LLP
Wilma Wallace, Associate General Counsel, The Gap, Inc.
Karen Kimmey, Partner and Executive Committee Member, Farella Braun + Martel, LLP
Tanya Lawson, Partner, Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold LLP
Amy Park, Partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Hosts: Joan Williams and Ida Abbott, Hastings Leadership Academy for Women

This teleconference will discuss how the Hastings Leadership Academy for Women prepares women for leadership. Join us to hear from faculty and alumnae about how the skills and mindsets taught at the Leadership Academy have helped them become recognized and respected as leaders. Then ask the presenters how the Leadership Academy can help you.

The Hastings Leadership Academy for Women is a leadership development program designed for women law firm partners and senior women in-house counsel.* The Leadership Academy prepares participants to assume greater leadership responsibilities, increase their visibility and value to their firms and companies, and leverage their abilities and talents more strategically for positive business results.

This year's Leadership Academy will take place July 20-23, 2011.

Register by May 20 and receive an early bird tuition discount.

*Although designed for women, this program is open to men.

To register for the teleconference, call 415-565-4640
or email allyncra@uchastings.edu.

Read about the Leadership Academy curriculum and faculty at
http://www.attorneyretention.org/LAW/program.html.

PAR Survey on Work-Life Balance of In-House Lawyers

2011-03-17T20:51:00.000-07:00

From my friend Joan C. Williams, Distinguished Professor of Law, Founder/Director, Center for WorkLife Law University of California, Hastings College of the Law:

The Project for Attorney Retention (PAR), which has long been a leader in helping legal employers create work-life balance, invites in-house lawyers to participate in a groundbreaking nationwide study of work-life among in-house counsel. The survey will take approximately 15 minutes to complete. Input into this study will help us to better understand what the challenges are, identify best practices, and ultimately, better address the needs that are yet unmet with respect to work-life balance in-house.

Contribution to this effort will help legal departments develop more effective work-life balance programs for in-house lawyers. Please follow this link to contribute your perspective to this study, and feel free to forward this survey link to other in-house attorneys you think might be interested in participating. Thank you.

A Little Bit Goes a Long Way

2011-03-11T20:56:00.000-08:00

I've been pleasantly surprised lately by the number of people who have remarked to me, without any prompting on my part, that they read and enjoy my posts. I publish a lot less frequently than I used to, though I still enjoy it. But every once in a while I wonder why I keep at it, because the personal and professional benefits aren't really obvious.

So each time someone mentions they've read it I get a real shot in the arm, and think that perhaps it is providing some benefit to the readers so I should press on. Just the mere mention makes me want to continue, to provide better content, to look for useful information to pass along. Similarly, criticism would probably sting quite a lot, though thankfully the vast populous who find my writing tedious, silly, or just boring prefer to tune out rather than comment.

Most midsize and large law firms make a big deal out of their associate review programs, with elaborate self assessments, reviews, action plans and so on. I have never seen criticism of a lawyer's work result in improved performance. Most often the criticism leads to a decline in morale, lower confidence, and less willingness to take risks necessary to improve performance. On the other hand, carefully crafted encouragement and praise seems to do a lot more to develop a desire to do a better job than harsh critiques ever do. Sometimes encouragement and teaching doesn't have the desired effect either, so I'm not saying that all performance problems can be solved with positive training or teaching methods.

Interestingly, I don't know of a single law firm that systematically supports peer or 360 reviews of partners. I'm not advocating those kinds of reviews, not the least because it would take an extraordinary amount of time. I suspect the real reason firms shy away from partner reviews is rooted in the fact that experienced lawyers find it very difficult to be anything other than harsh in their assessments of other lawyers. It's a rare legal eagle that has a good bedside manner, and most practicing lawyers are ruthless in peer assessment.

Although it's probably a much more tedious proposition, if anything would effectively influence positive changes in partner level lawyer performance (other than money), small doses of unsolicited praise for desirable behaviors is probably the best bet. A little bit will probably go a long way.

Patience is a virtue, but

2011-03-08T21:42:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the wait can be ridiculous! In the early 1990's I co-authored a paper with Kevin Bagley, on a very obscure provision of the Internal Revenue Code, Section 514(c)(9)(E), the infamous "Fractions Rule" that is near and dear to the hearts of oh, maybe 10 tax lawyers. The substantive import of my Article kind of escapes me now, with the passage of a couple of decades, more than a few bottles of wine and the intervening tussle of daily practice, family matters, and personal achievements. I hadn't thought about the article in about 17 years, since first impressing my current employer with my grasp of arcane tax provisions that led to a job offer at my current firm.

The headline in Exempt Organizations Tax Review read

May 20, 1992

Kevin M. Bagley and Cynthia R. Rowland of the Tax Exempt Organization Committee of the California State Bar Association have submitted recommendations on the treatment of unrelated business taxable income.

CALIFORNIA BAR SUGGESTS ELIMINATION OF QUALIFIED ALLOCATION RULES.

INVESTMENTS IN REAL ESTATE PARTNERSHIPSBY QUALIFIED ORGANIZATIONS
RECOMMENDATIONS RE: SECTION 514(c)(9)(E)
TAX EXEMPT ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE OF

THE TAXATION SECTION
CALIFORNIA STATE BAR ASSOCIATION

The original article can be found at 92 TNT 117-46, which is the weekly periodical Tax Notes Today, for those of you who aren't tax geeks.

So I was shocked, Shocked I say, to read in the President's (Obama, not Bush the First) 2011 Budget proposal a suggestion that the Fractions Rule of Section 514(c)(9)(E) be replaced with a more pragmatic approach (be sure to scroll all the way down to page 89 for the explanation). If I weren't so darn lazy I'd try to divine how the proposal differs from our proposal twenty years ago. It's not really important, except for the fact that it gives me yet another reminder that All Good Things Come to Those Who Wait.

Patience has been a struggle for me for almost 50 years now, and this little poke really isn't necessary to remind me that sometimes it's necessary to just take a breath and wait for the outcome that makes sense. Sometimes it takes years for good ideas to be recognized and appreciated. Sometimes it takes decades for circumstances to settle so that complex problems can be resolved. Perhaps in a perfect world everyone would recognize brilliant ideas the moment they are mentioned. But in the real world, apparently it takes time.

Charlie, We Just Can't Look Away

2011-03-02T20:12:00.000-08:00

Like Darren Franich, I find myself drawn into the massive crowd witnessing Charlie Sheen's pathetic and much too public meltdown. It's like watching a fire consume a house, a multi-car pile up, or wild animals eating their prey. Horrible to watch, but fascinating. I don't usually read entertainment news and I'm certainly not a celebrity groupie, but this version of the Charlie Sheen show is just too morbid to pass up. It's not even entertaining, it's just sad.

This might be a good time to remind lawyers, who as a group have a high risk for substance abuse problems, that there is help out there. Here are links to assistance programs for members of the bar. If any of you catch any links that don't work or have other resources you recommend, let me know and I'll correct or add to the list.

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Washington DC

These links were updated November 23, 2011. Please comment if you find a link that doesn't work. thank you.

The Primary Dilemma

2011-02-28T22:49:00.000-08:00

Just came across a really insightful analysis of working mothers and the choices they make, in a study by Lynn Hall at Primary Dilemma LLC. This is certainly one of the most thought-provoking approaches to understanding the choices working moms make that I've read in a long time. Although her study was not focused on women lawyers, it seems to me to be an incredibly useful tool for women and firm management. Rather than approaching working moms with a one-size-fits-all approach to flex time and career tracks, Lynn Hall's analytical approach helps crystallize what is important to the different work choices facing moms with different demands. By better understanding the motivations and limitations that women typically face, firm policies and attitudes can accommodate these differences and keep more women progressing up the career path.

I encourage you to read Lynn's summary, but in a nutshell, here are the five work styles she identifies from her studies:

Fully Loaded: Is a Single Parent. She is solely responsible for the balance of work and family. Among the women who responded to the PRIMARY DILEMMA research, 10% were Fully Loaded. Of note, a higher percentage of respondents reported to be single mothers but acknowledged co-parenting with someone else.

Workable: Is the primary career in her family. She spends more physical time working than physical childcare. The Workable is enabled by someone else providing primary childcare. Of note, the Workable is highly engaged with her children emotionally. Among working mothers responding to the PRIMARY DILEMMA research, 22% identified themselves as a Workable.

Equalizer: Is actively engaged in work and parenting. She must carefully coordinate with an equally involved and accountable partner to share childcare and household responsibilities. Of women responding to the PRIMARY DILEMMA research, 21% were Equalizers. This person has the opportunity to be a primary career and a primary parent, just not at the same time.

Obliged: Is the primary physical parent who also supplies a required second income. Of women responding to the PRIMARY DILEMMA research, 24% identified as Obliged. This is a complicated method. Most of the childcare responsibility will fall on the shoulders of this person but there is also significant pressure on her job. The greatest dissatisfaction for work was expressed among survey respondents in this cohort. The dissatisfaction typically reflected inflexible work arrangements and an overall shortage of time.

Parentess: Is the primary physical parent. She supplies a discretionary second income for her family. Among working mothers responding to the PRIMARY DILEMMA research, 22% identified themselves as a Parentess. Part-time or flexible work indexes highest for this method. In addition, she acknowledges that her method may be transitional.

The parenting style of a working mom who is a lawyer will dramatically affect her engagement in all facets of professional development, her frustrations, and her career trajectory. A woman who fits the "parentess" model is likely to be quite content with a stable income, nonequity partnership, or even staff attorney, at least for some portion of her career. Nothing wrong with that, and progressive law firms are well advised to make this option a real option for women (and men, for that matter).

But women who see themselves as "Workables" or "Equalizers" probably have a strong desire to succeed as a professional, and accordingly won't be content with the career and advancement limitations of nonequity or staff attorney type jobs. There is much that can be done by law firms to make this a realistic alternative for motivated and talented women who want a satisfying career, and a family life. .

Competence and Mentors

2011-02-27T21:47:00.000-08:00

Recently I was talking with a friend about the qualities that make a good teacher. We talked about the stages of competence, summarized nicely by Wikipedia:

The Four Stages

Unconscious Incompetence
The individual neither understands nor knows how to do something, nor recognizes the deficit, nor has a desire to address it.

Conscious Incompetence
Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit, without yet addressing it.

Conscious Competence
The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires a great deal of consciousness or concentration.

Unconscious Competence
The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it becomes "second nature" and can be performed easily (often without concentrating too deeply). He or she may or may not be able to teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was learned.

Natural language is an example of unconscious competence. Not every native speaker who can understand and be understood in a language is competent to teach it. Distinguishing between unconscious competence for performance-only, versus unconscious competence with the ability to teach, the term "kinesthetic competence" is sometimes used for the ability to perform but not to teach, while "theoretic competence" refers to the ability to do both.

Having watched many lawyers advance from newly-licensed lawyer, through the associate ranks, to partnership, it seems to me that for about the first 10 years in a private corporate practice most lawyers move back and forth between conscious incompetence and conscious competence, as different skills are mastered. Unconscious competence seems to take about 10 years of full time practice. The first few years are all about learning to research, write, and complete the routine technical tasks in a practice area. Then most lawyers spend several years learning to identify issues, and then a few more years figuring out which issues are actually relevant to a particular problem. The lawyer then needs to master the industry. The best lawyers recognize their incompetence as they approach a new level, and work hard to transition from conscious incompetence to conscious competence.

The best teachers at each level, in my view, are those who have just mastered it. When matching mentors to mentees, the greatest success seems to follow assignments that match those who are consciously incompetent with those who have just mastered the skill. But it's usually a mistake to match a developing lawyer with a mentor who has reached unconscious competence--highly-skilled lawyers rarely have reached that final skill of theoretic competence. In fact, highly-skilled lawyers rarely also choose to spend time teaching the basics--there is enough demand on their time from a host of other directions.

If you are lucky enough to find such a mentor and teacher, great, but if not, much can also be learned from those just a few years ahead in practice. The key here, it seems to me, is to continue to recognize the need to advance despite developing competence at one level. Many talented lawyers get derailed at the 3-5 year stage because although they've mastered the first few skill areas, they failed to recognize their incompetence at the next, until it is too late and some unforgivable or impolitic mistake is made.

Not a Tiger Mom

2011-02-19T19:44:00.000-08:00

I have to admit I have very little interest in Amy Chua’s parenting guide. I did read a review of the book, but I didn’t read the actual book and I doubt I ever will. I also have to admit that my screen name and password for various sites for many years has been “Tiger Mom,” since long before she coined that phrase. But I have no interest in competing with her for the rights to the phrase, nor do I want to try to convince anyone that my way of parenting is worth studying or emulating. My parenting tendencies are much more in line with the Slacker Mom philosophy than that Tiger Mom approach.

I do want to tell my readers who are new moms (and dads, for that matter) that it is okay to ignore my advice, and the advice of Amy and every other professional mom (or dad, or doctor, or other professional) who purports to have the secrets of success for raising kids while juggling a professional career.

Here’s the truth: there is no secret to success as a parent. There are no “top ten keys” to parenting that will help you to raise happy successful kids, develop a satisfying and successful career, and maintain meaningful adult relationships with life partners. The thousand decisions that have to be made every day to navigate those waters are too complicated to distill down to any priorities or guideposts that will work for every family, or even any family.

There is only what works right now for your family, and the best any parent can do at each decision point in the day is to reflect on where you are, where you’ve been and where you think your family needs to be. Every decision you face is a new chance to make the right call, navigate a teachable moment, forgive a past failing or ask forgiveness for the latest mistake. Sometimes you’ll get it right, and other times the consequences will be disastrous, sometimes even through no fault of your own. That’s just the nature of the job.

Good luck.

Something for (Almost) Everyone--NY, SF, DC AND CHICAGO!

2011-02-14T19:29:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK

WILEF East Program
Being Strategic About 24/7:
Assignments, Committees and Community

Date:	Wednesday, March 16
Venue:	Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP 4 Times Square New York, NY 10036
Breakfast and Networking:	8:00am - 8:30am
Program:	8:30 - 10:00am

Moderator
Joe Calve	Chief Marketing Officer, Morrison & Foerster LLP

Confirmed Speakers
Linda Listrom	Executive Director, National Association of Urban Debate Leagues
Joanne C. Stringer	Managing Director, Northern Trust
Nicolas Koechlin	Managing Director, Capital Markets, RR Donnelley
Mary Hunter	Associate, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Program Description
With only 24 hours in a day, having a strategy is important in taking on new assignments or joining a committee or not-for-profit board. Billable work takes precedence but where should you focus when deciding how to utilize down time and what goes into making those decisions? This program will address having the right "instinct" to contribute or volunteer and making it work for your career.

To Register, Click Here

SAN FRANCISCO

WILEF West Program
Ambition: The Fuel for Your Career Engine
(or Why Talent Isn't Enough)

Date:	Thursday, March 31
Venue:	Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP 555 Mission Street, Suite 3000 San Francisco, CA 94105
Breakfast and Networking:	8:00am - 8:30am
Program:	8:30- 10:00am

Moderator
Maureen Broderick	Founder and CEO, Broderick & Company

Confirmed Speakers
Ida Abbott	Principal, Ida Abbott Consulting LLC
Kara Baysinger	Partner, Vice Chair Insurance Practice, Lateral Acquisition Partner, Management Team member, Policy and Planning Committee member and Women’s Business Development Group member, SNR Denton
Mary G. Murphy	Partner and Executive Committee Member, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
Kim Thompson	Principal, General Counsel’s Office, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

Program Description
Ambition is assumed to be a prerequisite for success, yet many women are ambivalent about having or expressing ambition. From their varied perspectives, moderator and speakers will address the role of ambition in their own success and in the success of the more junior women with whom they have interacted. They will also discuss such topics as the meaning of ambition; how to communicate ambition in the face of possible double standards; and the existence of generational differences in the way women view ambition.

To Register, Click Here

WASHINGTON DC

WILEF DC Program
Planning Your Path to Career Success:
How to Set and Achieve Your Goals

Date:	Thursday, April 7
Venue:	Hogan Lovells LLP Columbia Square 555 Thirteenth Street NW Washington, DC 20004
Lunch and Networking:	12:00pm - 12:15pm
Program:	12:15pm - 1:45pm

Moderator
Jane Sullivan Roberts	Managing Director, Major, Lindsey & Africa
Confirmed Speakers
Linda L. Oliver	Career Development Partner, Hogan Lovells LLP
Beth A. Wilkinson	Partner, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP

Program Description
Whether your goal is law firm partner, in-house counsel or government lawyer, you are more likely to get there if you can identify your goals and develop a path to achieving those goals. To facilitate the process, our panel of experts will address topics such as using career development tools like SMART goals, individualized career development plans and commercial products, and using mentors to help develop plans and hold yourself accountable. They will also discuss their own experience with setting and achieving career goals.

To Register, Click Here
CHICAGO
Understanding and Using Your Personal Power to Achieve Career Goals" May 19-20, 2011 The Allerton Hotel, Chicago, IL This day-and-a half long conference is for women lawyers who want to achieve their full career potential. We will focus on enhancing your skills and contacts to help you to achieve your goals in today’s ever-changing law firm environment. Register for the Conference: You must be a member of the WLA to attend the conference. WLA members please go to www.wlalliance.org, sign in with your login and password and then click on the "Programs" link to register. (To become a member you may apply at www.wlalliance.org. Click on the "Become a Member" tab.)

Forty-Something Twit

2011-02-10T21:12:00.000-08:00

A wise old owl sat in an oak,
The more he heard, the less he spoke;
The less he spoke, the more he heard;
Why aren't we all like that wise old bird?

It’s been a while since I posted about Twitter, my favorite social networking tool, so I thought it might be interesting to compare how I used it in the early days—that would be two years ago—and how I use it now. For the first year or so, I thought of Twitter as an experiment, but it’s really evolved as quite a useful tool. Not in the way I first imagined, though. As it happens, I rarely tweet, and when I do it is usually a retweet of a particularly interesting article or something amusing I feel compelled to send it along. The real use of Twitter, for me, is not in attracting followers, but in compiling useful, personally relevant information feeds.

Most of the users that I follow are mainstream media—my favorite columnists and publications. I rely on their Twitter feeds to make sure I’m aware of where the planet is melting down and what I need to know about the business world. I’ve found my twitter news feeds to be far more reliable in telling me what I need and want to know than the editors of news media. I rarely read packaged media these days, and even their websites get little more than a quick scan of headlines from me.

I also follow all of my clients that tweet publicly. Their twitter feeds help me to know what’s going on in their business and what’s important to them. It may not be directly useful in my legal advice to them, but I do like to know what’s important to them.

Finally, I follow a few trusted sources of information in my professional field. I’ve found a couple of nonprofit and tax lawyers who regularly post about what’s happening, and what they think is important to their clients. Much of that is duplicative of what I read in the legal periodicals, but it’s fed to me on twitter in a modality more suited to my work and learning style (and attention span). Some of the most useful twitter feeds I’ve added lately are those that have been re-tweeted to me. I’m fascinated by most of the folks I follow, and they feed me even more great leads. How efficient is that.

Who do I NOT follow? I’ve un-followed all social friends who twitter—there’s no band-width in my head for following narcissistic feeds of a social schedule or attempts at being clever. I get updates from close friends and family members only on my Facebook page (and, on that network, I also hide messages from everyone who posts more than a couple of times a day.) In an era of information overload, I ruthlessly cull out of my information stream all useless chatter that crowds out what’s important. I also don’t follow any retailers. I get enough spam; I certainly don’t want tweets trying to sell me stuff.

I read tweets only once or twice a day, generally during my commute. Although I pick them up on my droid, I’m not alerted by incoming messages. Twitter is a channel of what I want, but only when I want it, and it doesn’t interrupt.

With all that said, it’s a wonder anyone follows me—there’s about a 3 to 1 ratio of people who follow me, to those I follow. I suspect that’s because my posts are so infrequent followers don’t think to shut me out—but not because I’m a wise old bird.

Live, or On-Line—Women in the Boardroom Events

2011-02-06T20:48:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of opportunities for leadership:

First, Live:

San Francisco
WOMEN IN THE BOARDROOM

Tuesday, February 8, 2011
3:00 PM to 6:00 PM
Registration at 2:30 PM

Hyatt Regency San Francisco
5 Embarcadero Center
San Francisco, CA 94111
Women in the Boardroom is an executive leadership event designed to assist in the preparation for board service - better qualifying and connecting attendees with the right resources. Our
panelists are executives with for-profit board experience and a
desire to share their knowledge and necessary tools for serving
as a director. Although the focus is for-profit boards, much of
the knowledge gained can be applied to non-profit service.

Topics of Discussion Include:

- Role of being a director
- Differences of a non-profit, private and public board
- Board selection process
- Being an effective board member
- Positioning yourself for board service/taking the next step

To Register Online:

Click Here

Or, if you’re not in San Francisco, try the online options:

Wednesday, February 23, 2011 at 12PM EST

Join Women in the Boardroom

LIVE online for our 1st Virtual Panel (vPanel)

What is a vPanel?

vPanel is our newest platform to reach a larger audience and to bring you more experiences from other people who have for profit board experience from across the country. Our in-person events are just once a year per city, so don't miss out on the opportunity to join us live on the web for additional learning. We will feature three panel members who will share their experiences of board service. They will be coming to you via their web cams and you will be able to sit and relax right at your desk. The event is interactive, so you can ask questions as we go along.

Purpose of the event?

Women in the Boardroom is an executive leadership event designed to assist in the preparation for board service - better qualifying and connecting attendees with the right resources. Our panelists are executives with for-profit board experience and a desire to share their knowledge and necessary tools for serving as a director. Although the focus is for-profit boards, much of the knowledge gained can be applied to non-profit service.

To register: http://womenintheboardroomvpanel.eventbrite.com

For questions: info@womenintheboardroom.com or www.womenintheboardroom.com

Neither works for you, but you want to be in the loop? Try social media connections:

Join our "Women in the Boardroom" group on LinkedIn
and be connected to over 2,600 people across the US.

Follow us @BoardroomWomen on Twitter.
To submit information for the partner newsletter please
email info@womenintheboardroom.com

Just don’t complain you don’t know how to get in the loop!

The Shoes Make the Woman

2011-01-31T15:00:00.000-08:00

Here is a post that first appeared in 2010. I decided to reprint it today for two reasons: first, I haven't written about professional appearance issues lately, although that is one of the most popular topics that brings people to this little site. Also, these are my favorite shoes.

It's time to write another post with fashion advice, just because it's been a while since I commented on why appearance matters for women lawyers. Today's fashion topic is narrowly focused on shoes and the conundrum women face. It's not so hard for you men: all you need are four pair (see this advice from AskMen). But let's face it, that won't get a professional woman very far.

I must admit when I was a young lawyer and also had three kids to shoe, I myself only had three pair of work shoes: black pumps, blue pumps, and sneakers to wear while commuting. Oh, and I had a pair of riding boots. One day in preparation for our annual women attorneys' mentoring lunch at the firm, the entertainment committee came by and snapped a surprise photo of each woman, so we could play a fun game called "match the shoes to the lawyer." I was wearing my manure-covered riding boots with jeans the day of the photo shoot. Of course at the bonding lunch every other woman's shoes were stylish, new, and clean. I was mortified and vowed that day to commit the rest of my professional career to finding and wearing super beautiful shoes that were shiny and clean. Ok perhaps that's a little exaggerated, but I have made much more effort since then to actually find interesting shoes to wear that didn't kill my feet. I'm better at the former than the latter, but what's a little pain when the shoes are killer cute.

Here's the conundrum part: one can be too racy with shoes. I've heard clients comment on inappropriate particularly high heeled and racy shoes worn by particularly young and attractive women lawyers. Probably the younger and more beautiful the lawyer, the more plain the shoes should be. It's all about the message and image one wants to impart, like every other aspect of a professional woman's wardrobe. If you're old and frumpy like me, racy shoes send a different message than if you're young and beautiful, so be careful out there.

One final bit of advice: if you hate shoe shopping as much as I do, spend some time with the online shoe sellers. They'll send you any number of shoes to try on in the privacy of your own home, and at the same time you can test the commitment of your significant other. Or you can be committed by your significant other. So, as I said, be careful out there.

Cynthia

I ought to be Committed

2011-01-27T20:47:00.000-08:00

To some kind of institution that treats chronic overcommitment. Is there an "Over-committers Anonymous" support group?

Regular readers will have noticed my postings have been more sporadic than usual in January. This month always starts for me with tons of enthusiasm for New Year's Resolutions, and by the end of the month my family notices a dazed look about me as I stare at all the commitments I've made. Webinars, seminars, legislative drafting committees, low income tax clinics, board meetings; the list of promises I've made for non-client work in the first half of this year is more than a bit excessive. Easier to keep up with existing commitments than to resign from anything, and how can I pass up new opportunities lest they be a path to interesting relationships! Besides, who wants the prospect of nothing to do, right? Better to have too much than too little, say the chronic over-committers.

Well, somehow I'll get it done, just like all you sisters out there who've done the same thing. As they say, if you want something done, just ask a busy woman.

In any event, keeping this blog going is also on my list of commitments. I'm not actually short on ideas, just short on time to write. Guest postings would certainly be welcome.

Pruning

2011-01-17T19:28:00.000-08:00

As some of you know, one of my hobbies is gardening. I've had to take a hiatus for the last several years as my house was being re-developed (remodel is too tame a word for what we did), and the garden was all but destroyed in the process. But in spite of two years of neglect, my roses were peeking through the weeds today, promising me gorgeous summer blooms if I'd just give them some attention. Those of you who are rose growers know that to grow your own cut-flower quality roses, the real gardening work must happen during the winter, when the canes are dormant.

I've learned a little about pruning over the years, and am by no means ready to tackle any roses other than my own. But I have learned some of the basics: prune out dead and diseased wood, leave no branches thicker than a pencil, and the more severe the pruning, the fewer, but more magnificent, the blooms will be.

Today I was somewhat ruthless, cutting the roses back quite a bit more than ever before. After all my neglect, the bushes were spindly, with many old rotten canes and very little strong, healthy new growth from last season that would bear flowers this year. After years of practice, I can now pretty confidently choose which branches to keep, and which to send to the recycle bin.

I do the same every so often with my practice--carving out and getting rid of marketing and business development ideas that have grown organically with my professional life but just fail to produce anything worth doing. It takes some patience (just like gardening, by the way) to wait a few seasons and let a new marketing idea develop. Some marketing ideas, networks and professional relationships just don't develop as well as others. Others bring out exciting, fun, professionally satisfying work. It does take some discipline to sit down every once in a while and prune out the dead wood. Marketing ideas that don't lead to good work just saps my strength and enthusiasm from the ones that do. It's not always easy to walk away from a longstanding professional group, or lunch bunch, or even a practice area that once seemed so full of promise. But if you're not getting the quality of blooms you want, best to cut out the unproductive canes and give some new growth a chance.

Must View: Sheryl Sandburg

2011-01-12T09:31:00.000-08:00

Two of my readers have strongly recommended this video, so I'll pass it along to all of you. Do take the time to watch it.

Also, Vivia Chen adds some interesting commentary. Interesting food for thought.

Billable Hours Resolutions

2011-01-04T20:31:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's that awful time of year--we're inundated with messages about each other's self improvement goals and desires. I guess it's human nature to pause and take stock of those habits that need to be changed. I read somewhere once that it takes only seven days of changed behavior before the change sets in as a habit. If that's true, it should be easy to find out in the next week or so who has actually managed to stick to the resolutions made in the wee hours of January 1, 2011.

I know a lot of lawyers who are disappointed in their billable hours for 2010, and who have resolved to get closer to the mark in 2011. Let's assume for argument's sake that your firm's target is for each lawyer to bill 1800 hours to client work in 2011. To meet that target and be able to take a few weeks of vacation, one needs to bill about 7.2 hours each day, five days a week. Assuming that one also does not want to work on national holidays, the daily quota would increase to about 7.5. If one is sickly, has sickly kids, or parents to care for, add another half hour of work each day for a cushion. So that means a realistic target is more like eight hours of billed work each day. No big surprise there, it's pretty simple math.

What does surprise me is that there are timekeepers in private practice who consistently significantly undershoot their target, and profess an inability to understand why they don't get the hours billed by the end of the year. Here's my advice for those folks.

Try this for the next seven work days: don't leave the office until you've actually recorded eight billed hours, and before you leave for the day, be sure you have another eight hours, at least, lined up for the next day. This might mean that you have to spend some time on business development (either internally, or externally) each day to be sure you have enough work tomorrow. And keep in mind that the eight hour rule applies whether or not time is also spent on administrative tasks, professional development, department meetings, and so on. Those things just don't count. Sad, but true. Yes, they have to be done. No, they don't pay the bills (or your salary). Keep in mind, also, that looking for work after everyone else has gone home might be a little tough, so you might want to line up more work BEFORE you start your billable work for the day. Or you could also line up many days' work before you start doing any billable work for the day.

If you find that you're work load is a bit lumpy--that is, too little work to start with, or too much--join the club. If you find you're actually working longer days than you want to in order to meet the billable hour target, consider looking for your bliss at a place where the expectation is more to your liking.

Finally, for those of you who find yourself consistently overshooting the mark, the habit of working too much might be just as hard to break for you as it is for the slackers. The key for you is to go home, sign off, shut down after the required number of hours have been billed. It might be hard, at first, to get a life going, but I suspect that if seven days in a row you leave the office at a reasonable hour and go do something else, you too might be able to meet your goal. It just takes some discipline. The world will not end if you don't work so hard. And you might find yourself to be a wee bit more efficient in your work habits if you know you must leave the office at a specific time.

Now, for the fun part, I am sure you all want to know what my resolutions are. I'm not going to tell you my personal goals for the year, though I have a few and I'm pretty excited about them. But I will share one professional resolution: I will not spray pink neon dye on any lawyers. Not even the slackers.

She Thinks, Inspirational and Thought-Provoking Quotes, July – December 2010

2011-01-02T21:17:00.000-08:00

You don't want me to go into the melting of the polar cap and the glaciers and the great rivers of Southeast Asia and the water supply in Tibet and the encroachment of the Gobi desert and the sandstorms in Beijing and the rise of sea level in all of our maritime areas in the world and. … I would just recommend you go to Alaska to see what is happening. Nancy Pelosi

Gunning not just for personal triumph for yourself but for durable achievement to be proud of for life is the difference between winning things and leadership. Rachel Maddow

Women keep a special corner of their hearts for sins they have never committed. Cornelia Otis Skinner

Stubbornness gets you through the bad times. You don’t give in. Patricia Neal

You have to reinvent yourself in stages. Barbara Corcoran

It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself. Betty Friedan

I had a sister much older than myself, from whose modesty and goodness, which were great, I learned nothing. Saint Teresa

When choosing between two evils I always like to take the one I've never tried before. Mae West

You grow up the day you have your first real laugh—at yourself. Ethel Barrymore

It's great for this institution and for the country that women are now one-third of the highest court in the land. It means that we are really here. We are no longer one- or two-at-a-time curiosities. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Most of the real 'heroes' I know are women who would not get called heroes. They are deeply flawed, and what's within that human spectrum—feeling weak, crying, messing up, being angry—is much more exciting to me. Debra Winger

Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy. Nora Ephron

This guy laughed at me and said they'd never elected a Democrat much less a nonwhite person who works for unions ... So I was like, OK you've made us mad, and my family and I walked to every door. Jean Quan

2010 In Pictures

2010-12-30T11:55:00.000-08:00

PhD's

2010-12-27T21:56:00.000-08:00

So, this morning I was riding BART to work and enjoying the relative serenity of a holiday commute, when some moron jammed the doors to one of the cars by forcing it open as it began to close when he (ok, maybe it was a she but I doubt it) forced the door open. By knocking the door off its track the scofflaw damaged the car so it was taken out of service at the next station, we all had to get off and board the next train, with about a 20 minute delay in our travel time. This really annoyed me. It happens from time to time, and causes a huge inconvenience to the entire San Francisco Bay Area commuting public.

As I sat there I thought about ways to discourage such behavior. I've been riding BART as a regular commuter for some 25 years now, and apparently the brilliant minds managing the transit system have yet to figure out how to deal with it. Here's my suggestion. Someone needs to design a mechanism, kind of like a pepper spray device, that will spray a neon pink, nontoxic, biodegradable, washable substance in an arc over the doors to a train, which is discharged only when the doors are blocked by a boarding passenger, in a gentle spray that would cover the entry area so as to mark the scofflaw for everyone on said damaged car. The mechanism needs to be small, inexpensive, easily attached to the transit cars, and easily refilled. I am sure there is an engineer out there who will do this, to the applause of the commuting public everywhere. I will call these inventions Public Humiliation Devices, or PhD's for convenience.

See, the problem is that when people exist in a relatively anonymous environment, without real accountability, they believe they can behave outside the rules and norms of acceptable social behavior. Unless society imposes immediate personal feedback for bad behavior, the behavior doesn't change. I hope that the person who caused the huge inconvenience for hundreds of people commuting to San Francisco learned his/her lesson this morning. But even if he/she did, the educational effect of the delayed commute time was not communicated to the rest of society. I suspect that publicly distributed photos of a person sprayed with neon pink dye would be exponentially effective as a deterrent if splashed across the web following each event.

This chain of thought readily connected with my work today sending out year-end bills, where some other rule scofflaws had failed to submit their time sheets so the time had to be written off. It's unbelievably frustrating to find time entries for client work long after the client has been billed for the relevant time period. I've never understood the rationale given by lawyers who aren't capable of submitting time sheets daily. There's just no excuse, and the message I read into any lawyer's late time entry, from senior partner to junior associate to paralegal, is that the tardy person just doesn’t give a !@#$. So fine, when you're time shows up late on one of my clients, I'm not going to bill it. Go ahead and pretend you've actually worked that time, you and I both know that it's not worked time that can be factored into a fair fee for the client.

If I could design a PhD that could work to label time sheet scofflaws, I would. Unfortunately, there's really no effective way to spray neon pink dye on lawyers that won't get me into trouble. Public humiliation in some other form might work, though. Perhaps a publicly posted "worst time sheet offender" list might work. I'll have to check with my firm's COO to see if I can get that implemented. If anyone else has a good idea, I'd love to hear it.

My editors today gently suggested that my first draft of this post conveyed more anger than humor, which I thought a nice reflection on my intent. In the grand scheme of things, I'd like you all to be more amused by the image of lawyers sprayed with pink dye than the image of my scowling face as I review paperwork. Whatever. Turn in your damn time sheets.

Self Assessment

2010-12-15T23:45:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite leadership coaches, Peggy Klaus, has a great article this month: Smarter New Year’s Resolution: Look Back Before Moving Forward. So with her prompting I realize I now have to go back and read my 2010 resolutions and evaluate how I've done before I can make any resolutions for 2011. It looks like I'm at about 50% so far, and have only 15 days left in this year to move up to a more respectable grade. Guess I better get busy.

It's tough, though, to critically assess oneself. Since peer assessments are rare in the legal profession, it's pretty tough for most of us to get any sort of thoughtful feedback about our professional strengths and weaknesses. I think that it's really hard for self-reflective lawyers who have an awareness that they really do have some weaknesses to be objective (yes, there are a few lawyers who admit to such, though only a few). Most of us fall back to our own comfort zones, not only in our day to day behavior, but also in how we assess ourselves. This is where a good professional coach can become a great resource. Another good source of feedback can be found in a trusted peer group. Personally, I've found better (that is, more insightful and honest) feedback from other professionals who aren't lawyers.

Last year my professional resolutions seemed to be mostly focused on client and practice development. Given how much I've struggled this past year with balancing work and play, I know that I need to assess my ability to get more done in less time, rather than trying to assess my skills that are focused on getting more work to do. In the past, I've managed my own anxiety about getting things done by resorting to one of my favorite tasks, writing lists and assigning myself tasks. But I've also gotten some insightful feedback this past year about being too focused on planning and controlling agendas, so perhaps this fall back approach isn't the best way to manage. I'm thinking one of my resolutions should be to spend less energy trying to control and manage time, and more energy on just getting the work done, and living and working in the moment.

I think I'll schedule my analysis of this little conundrum for sometime in the week after Christmas. Then in January I'll write my resolutions and post them so I can be held accountable. There, I feel better already: I've given myself an agenda for next week, and an assignment to write a list. That, I can do.

Haiku #24

2010-12-12T21:06:00.000-08:00

long thought a poet
the most romantic of all
instead, just silly?

Unconscious Gender Bias Panel

2010-12-09T21:03:00.000-08:00

IDENTIFYING AND TRACKING

UNCONSCIOUS GENDER BIAS IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION

Please Join Ellen and a Panel of Distinguished Women in Law for a Program Presented by the

Federal Bar Council

Date: Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Time: 5:45 - 7:45 p.m.
Location: Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse, Room 850, 500 Pearl Street, New York, NY

Program Description
This program will explore unconscious gender bias in the legal profession and how it affects women at every level, from the way work is assigned to business development opportunities. The esteemed group of panelists will also discuss strategies to combat such unconscious bias while attempting to avoid negative perceptions of women. The panel will be held from 5:45 to 7:15 p.m., followed by a reception to network and discuss the issues raised during the panel.

Moderator
The Honorable Delissa A. Ridgway, U.S. Court of International Trade
Former Member, ABA Commission on Women in the Profession
Co-Chair, ABA Section of Litigation Task Force on Implicit Bias

Panelists

Vivia Chen, Esq.

Chief Blogger, The Careerist
Senior Reporter, The American Lawyer

Patricia K. Gillette, Esq.

Partner, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP

Member, ABA Commission on Women in the Profession

Founder, Opt-In Project

Roberta D. Liebenberg, Esq.

Partner, Fine, Kaplan and Black, R.P.C.

Chair, ABA Commission on Women in the Profession

Ellen Ostrow, Ph.D., CMC

Founding Principal, Lawyers Life Coach LLC

Program Coordinators
Brooke E. Cucinella, Esq., O'Melveny & Myers LLP

Elizabeth A. Fitzwater, Esq., Arkin Kaplan Rice LLP

Jerri E. Shick, Esq., O'Melveny & Myers LLP

Jennifer J. Sosa, Esq., Milberg LLP

Federal Bar Council Program Committee Chair
David B. Pitofsky, Esq., Goodwin Procter LLP

Registration Information
All attendees must register online.

Gift Giving Trials and Tribulations

2010-12-06T21:36:00.000-08:00

I've never been very good at gift giving. This year I'm going to write about personal gift giving because I don't have any different thoughts than I posted last year about client appreciation gifts. If you don't really care to know about my gifting history then go ahead, move on to your next favorite blog.

One reason I'm so bad at giving gifts is that I don't know the objects of my gifting all that well. To be successful at this one needs to be extremely perceptive and attentive to the other person. This is just very hard to do with anyone other than oneself. My kids, for example, are a bit of a challenge because I never really know who they are at any given point in time. I know who they were a few years ago, last month, and even yesterday. But I've learned over the last 26 years, that no matter how well I knew them 10 minutes ago, I have no idea who they are right now, let alone who they will be two weeks in the future on the actual day the gift is to be delivered. By then they will have changed 100 times and what I thought was a perfect gift will be completely outdated and inappropriate by Christmas Day.

Another reason: I hate shopping. I have absolutely no desire to mosey around a store or--god-forbid--a shopping center, "browsing." What the heck is browsing anyway? One either does a task (that is, purchases stuff) or one doesn't. There is just no point in looking around somewhat aimlessly for inspiration among all the schlock for sale that is someone else's idea of a needed thing. Besides, the time spent on browsing has a cost attached--the opportunity cost of billing that hour. So the fully-amortized cost of each gift includes the time spent shopping for it. And at more than $500 per hour of browsing time, the cost of gifts for the entire family gets pretty pricey.

For the past 5 years or so I've harnessed the power of the internet to dramatically cut the cost of acquiring the gifts. I thought I was being frugal, creative and efficient by finding one thing that would speak to the community of interest held by all my family members. What could be better than buying everyone a gingerbread house kit? All I had to do was input their addresses and hit the search key on a glossy, catchy website several times, key in the credit card info once, and voila, instant holiday cheer to all.

Except I knew even then that the approach was pretty lame. It sort of works if the goal is to check the box "Sent gifts to the family." But it's not going to bring about world peace, or even family peace. And even as charitable as I like to think I am, the idea of giving family members "gifts" in the form of a gift to a charity makes sense only through some pretty twisted logic. Yes, it's good for the charity and the planet of course, but is it really a gift to the person on your list?

My husband and I have worked out a different sort of arrangement for gifting each other. One year he gave me a Makita (we still have it). I've only used the thing once or twice because he's afraid I'll break it, or break some part of myself. Sometimes I'm allowed to bring it to him so he can do some essential task like rebuilding the house. Another year he gave me an asphalt driveway. This year I'm pretty sure that he's giving me lathe parts so that he has the tools to rebuild another antique dirt bike.

Over the years I've given him a yak/cashmere sweater made by my clients in Tibet, olive oil from another client's biodynamic farm, steaks from another's grass fed beef operation. You see the basic trend here. This year I'm looking for a client that breeds small dogs, preferably

a papillon, because I am just really sure that what he really wants is a puppy for Christmas. Just like I want another tool.

How to Tips for Holiday Parties

2010-12-03T20:49:00.000-08:00

Ahh, the office holiday party. I love the holiday season, I always have, and I like parties. So naturally I like the holiday office party, too. But they do come with challenges. Last year I posted some videos about how to behave at the office party. This year I'll expand with a video on how to avoid the crazies, which is definitely a hot topic for this time of year. Watch this video for some ideas about how to get away from the office pervert, detach yourself from a clinger, what to do about the office jokester, and other useful tips. It's particularly useful for young lawyers attending their first few office parties, but it may also be useful for some with a little more gray hair--if you sense some of these exit strategies being applied to you, it might be a signal that you've become someone others are trying to avoid. Just a thought.

Small Stuff

2010-11-28T19:57:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to work everybody! It's been a while since I truly took a long weekend, what a blessing it is to really disengage from practice for 4 days! I should do this more often. It certainly helps with perspective.

Before checking out last week I was chatting with a colleague about some pretty ordinary frustrations about the practice. It's nice to have a sympathetic ear. Rather than fomenting her righteous indignation and letting her get her panties in a twist, I reminded her not to sweat the small stuff. And she knows as well as I do that it's all small stuff.

Well, not all. There are some non negotiable things: professional ethics and personal integrity are at the top of my list. But most all of the rest of the annoyances really are just small things in the grand scheme of things. Yes, we need to vent occasionally. But venting to a trusted colleague who won't use the venting against you at a later date is much better than lashing out at the source(s) of all those little (and sometime not so little) things our partners, colleagues, and even clients, do that we wish they would not. They're all human, too.

Easy to say on a mellow Sunday evening after a lovely holiday weekend. Let's see if I can follow my own advice this week.

Best,

Cynthia

Hastings Leadership Academy 2011

2010-11-21T20:03:00.000-08:00

July 20-23, 2011--

Reserve your space now! The Leadership Academy is limited to a small group of women law firm partners and for one full day of the program, senior women in-house counsel. The small size of the class ensures an intimate learning environment and the chance to interact closely with a distinguished faculty comprised of law firm leaders, experts, law and business school professors, and general counsel.

To reserve a space at the 2011 Leadership Academy, or for more information,
call 415-565-4640, go to http://www.attorneyretention.org/LAW
or send an email to info@attorneyretention.org.

University of California,
Hastings College of the Law
San Francisco

Sponsored by the Project for Attorney Retention

Although the program is designed for women,
it is open to all law firm partners and senior in-house counsel.

Back Up Plans

2010-11-19T14:44:00.000-08:00

I think it's a habit developed mostly from 26+ years of parenting while also working full time, but however I acquired it, I have this neurotic need to have a back up plan for as many contingencies as I can imagine so that I can get my tasks done each day. Many of these back up plans are just basic mechanics for getting through the day: if the power at home goes out my back up alarm will wake me; if the car doesn't start I'll take the truck; if there's no parking at my preferred BART train station, I go to station #2; if the trains aren't running I can work from home using my laptop; if the laptop crashes I can work from the Droid; if the home network isn't connecting I'll use the verizon card to connect; if the VPN isn't connecting I'll use Citrix; if Citrix isn't working I'll call the office and ask my IT buddies what I've done to mess things up; if the power is out in the office so none of the networks are working...

I'll take the rest of the day off.

Have a great weekend.

Cynthia

Haiku #23

2010-11-14T20:42:00.001-08:00

The final descent

Heaven:: earth; peace:: chaos. Run-

way lights show the way

Things I Love and Things I Hate

2010-11-07T19:33:00.000-08:00

I hate:

Spring Forward and Fall Back

Sick pets.

Airplanes.

Not being able to access Outlook off line.

Sitting in windowless hotel conference rooms for 18 hours of legislative drafting.

I love:

Sleeping in.

Kitties that purr when they feel better.

Landing.

Accessing email through my verizon card.

Making a difference by being part of the legislative process.

For more on legislative drafting projects, see the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws.

Cynthia

Dirty Jobs

2010-11-02T21:17:00.000-07:00

This post first ran a couple of years ago in October of 2008. Tonight I watched another fun episode of Dirty Jobs and was reminded how one person's dirty job (cleaning up frozen poo and urine for sled dogs in Alaska) is another's dream job. I suppose the same can be said about certain tasks that keep a law firm running.

Mike Rowe's hit show on Discovery Channel, "Dirty Jobs," absolutely fascinates me. The show follows Mike Rowe as he "visits with unsung heroes who do these ucky, mucky, yucky jobs so you don't have to." Spend some time at http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/dirtyjobs/dirtyjobs.html and watch a few clips. When I feel particularly discouraged by my professional life I switch to Dirty Jobs and immediately count my blessings. Milking poisonous snakes, caring for large and dangerous animals, exterminating insects (the termite show was particularly distressing to me), and generally doing everything in either filthy, smelly, dangerous, noisy or wet conditions is real work and something for which people should be handsomely rewarded.

So it is with real humility that I post these musings: there are also ucky, mucky, yucky jobs in law firms that don't seem to be particularly appreciated. I'm not talking about the Art Committee, the Entertainment Committee or the Recruiting Committee, although I recognize that for some people those committees would be pure torture. ("Should we buy that horrible, massive red piece and hang it in the lobby so all our clients can see our bad taste, or this one?" just might drive an educated art critic nuts. But I digress.)

Ucky, yucky, mucky jobs in law firms tend to be those that require time consuming non-billable work(meaning economically unseen for nearly all law firm compensation committees) and that provide little opportunity for fun, good food, or professional or personal development. The library committee, pension committee, client intake committee, risk management or ethics committee, and insurance committee come to mind. Then there are the day-to-day things we do in our own practices that are personally yucky: some lawyers find marketing, public speaking, client billing or collection work, staff management, subordinate review, or recruiting to be their equivalent of getting down in the poo and mud.

All of these are necessary jobs that someone has to do to make the machine work, so I'm not dissing their importance. Back to my balance theme, though, I do think it is important that the ucky, mucky, yucky jobs get spread around fairly. There should be term limits and rotations on and off the primo and the ucky, mucky, yucky committees. Fortunately, the same things don't float everyone's boat, so with a little attention to the details of personal satisfaction and skill sets the good and the not-so-good jobs can be spread around a bit to provide everyone with a fair share of the opportunities for professional advancement, fun, and muck.

What's the uckiest, muckiest, yuckiest job you've seen a lawyer do? I think we should stick to legal activities here and stay away from the illegal and unethical. Do share.

Cynthia

Hair

2010-10-26T20:34:00.000-07:00

Here's a priceless message for women who have issues with their natural hair. Enjoy, and share.

For the background story about the video, go here.

Cynthia

The Billing Narrative

2010-10-25T21:57:00.000-07:00

Just a short note is in order tonight, since I've spent most of my evening editing my bills for time recorded over the past four weeks for clients whose matters I supervise. It's unfortunate that the lawyers who most need to understand that the time spent drafting their time entries are those individuals who are least likely to see the entries in context, and so have no idea how a little extra effort can make a huge difference in client satisfaction. Thoughtfully written time entries take into account what was done yesterday and today, and will be done tomorrow. When the time entries make sense of the tasks performed, the people involved, and the work done, billing by the hour can make tremendous sense to the client.

Recently my alma mater sought input from alumni on the law school curriculum. Unfortunately I couldn't attend the meetings because of schedule conflicts, but I do have a proposal. I think that probably the most valuable course that could be added to the law school curriculum would be a practical skills course that required law students to write, review, and pay (from a limited fictional budget), the legal fees for a variety of tasks. In fact, I think I could design that curriculum! Many young lawyers work for years without seeing how the billing cycle plays out, from the time entries, through the billing partner edits and write-offs, to the client review and questioning, and finally the payment. I do think it would be a very useful thing for the legal profession for more young lawyers to be connected to the invoicing cycle so that they could understand what work is appreciated and compensated by the clients, and what work is not.

Cynthia

Amortization of Business Development Costs

2010-10-20T21:39:00.000-07:00

Attentive readers will recall the post back in April Morale for the Peeps, wherein I wrote about a creative associate's attempt to bring some levity to an otherwise fairly boring office routine by an art installation on a partner's desk involving six chicks. The chicks came home with me back last Spring, were fostered by a neighbor for five months whilst my home was being rebuilt, and just last weekend came home to the most awesome chicken coop ever built. And perhaps one of the more expensive ones. Said creative associate spent about seven hours with me a few weekends ago, on the last 100 degree summer day, building a lovely home for the ladies. They have a raised floor covered with stylish linoleum, a modern easily cleaned nest box, a super ergonomic roost, a window with a screen to keep the bugs out and let the sun shine in, and a sliding door that keeps the wolves (and labradors) at bay. It's a bucolic scene. Well after just a few days the ladies are paying me back handsomely--FOUR eggs today! So the total production is now SEVEN! And that means that the cost of my investment in coop materials is now being recouped (get it, re-cooped!) rapidly. I think the cost of the materials was about $200, since we used lots of scrap wood that otherwise would have gone to the landfill. So the hard cost per egg is now just under $30 each. That makes for a fairly pricey omelette, but someday soonish the cost will be more in line with the price of organic free range chicken eggs from the local farmer's market.

Actually, though, the cost is a bit higher when I take into account our time to build the coop. I think our combined billing rate was about $1,000 per hour, so the true cost of that day spent building the coop should be increased by about $7,000. And that's not taking into account the years of study that I personally have invested in learning to raise and care for chickens. So, the omelette that my husband has promised to make for our breakfast tomorrow morning represents a total outlay of thousands and thousands of dollars.

Perhaps we should have been working on client matters instead of building a McMansion for the ladies. But the little tale does help illustrate a point about the true cost of client development. For many lawyers, client development follows years and years of time spent learning how to take care of clients, to meet their needs, and to protect them from predators. Studying design for food and water delivery. Learning about the most productive way to clean up messes.

I should probably end the analogy here because I suspect that some of my clients won't understand my analogy to chickens. They might if they knew how much I love my chicks, and how pleased I am when they give me eggs. But the point (and I guess I have been obtuse enough today to actually need to re-state my point) is that when evaluating the cost of client development, it's important to take into account the time spent as well as the hard costs. Time spent to travel to, as well as time spend in attendance at, networking meetings is a cost of business development, just as is as the hard costs for the plane tickets, hotel and meeting fees. It's a good discipline to keep track of the out of pocket costs, as well as the time spent, in building our business development plans, in order to determine whether the structure we're building is an amusing hobby, or a truly productive use of time.

It's pretty clear to me that my time spent on chickens is never going to enable me to make a living. By keeping an eye on which of my "client development" activities are effective, taking into account time as well as materials, I'm hoping that my relative acquisition cost per client is a bit lower than my cost per egg.

Cynthia

Haiku #22

2010-10-14T20:51:00.000-07:00

Grip grasp hold hug hang
on--to fading summer heat
Late October chills

Books

2010-10-13T20:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes, I know I've slacked off my posting lately (have you missed me? I doubt it). I've been writing my novel (in my head) and contemplating whether it is a more productive use of my time to write these little posts/tirades/lament's or instead fiction about middle-aged women.

Then in today's mail I was reminded that I have to write the updates for my chapters in a legal treatise to which I've contributed for the last 13 years, so I guess I won't start the novel until that is finished. And I suppose I'll see if I can pound out a few more thoughtful comments for this site. So it looks like my fiction writing career will have to take a back seat for a while longer, and instead I'll continue to contribute to the legal profession in my spare time.

Speaking of books, several of my colleagues have published lately. I haven't read these yet but they are on my list. If any of you beat me to the finish line, I'll be happy to publish your review as a guest post. Check out Professor Joan Williams recently finished Reshaping the Work–Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter (Harvard Univ. Press 2010), and Ida Abbott's Women on Top: The Woman's Guide to Leadership and Power in Law Firm.

As soon as I finish my current bedside story (Personal Recollection of Joan of Arc by Mark Twain) I'll move on to Joan's and Ida's works, and then will perhaps begin that novel.

Cynthia

From Gladness and Joy

2010-09-29T22:48:00.000-07:00

Faithful readers will have noticed that my posting rate has declined a bit, and there are many reasons for that but hopefully now that the days are getting shorter and there are fewer distractions, I'll find more time to contemplate leadership and lawyers. I also have to admit I've been enjoying more than a few happy distractions lately, now that the money pit/construction project from hell/dream house is finished. It's amazing how much energy a project like that sucks up. Now that we've been moved in for almost two months I'm finding that rather than spending frustrating weeks on end with nothing to do but watch contractors make progress at a snail's pace, I can actually do something each day to make the home environment happier. And that brings me great satisfaction and more than a little joy.

That train of thought reminded me of some of the best advice I ever got from a mentor about the most important quality in leadership--to remember to lead from a place of gladness. As we all know, laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone. That holds true for every form of leadership. People want to be around happy people, not those that emote negativity. Two people can approach a problem with the same idea for effecting a solution, but if team effort is required, people will follow the cheerful and avoid the depressing. That is human nature.

It's taken me a while to learn to distinguish the truly cheerful leaders around me who subtly influence change, from those who lead by other means. It's not always easy in the legal profession (or any other, I suspect, though I don't have personal experience anywhere else) to avoid being sucked into negative, argumentative, fault finding leadership styles. Sometimes the negative style seems more effective, and perhaps in some environments it is. But in terms of developing a network of colleagues and influencing that network in a positive way, I appreciate my cheerful mentor's advice: the best approach is one that centers itself in gladness.

The Value of a Great Secretary

2010-09-23T20:24:00.000-07:00

As long as we're thinking about thanking the people who are important to our work lives, let's take a moment to thank the ones who can make a bad day work out fine, or sabotage a great day: let's hear it for secretaries (or, to be more politically correct, administrative assistants.)

Although it certainly helps to have a whole team of people to run a law firm, when it comes right down to the day to day labor of getting the work out the door, it's the great secretaries who are worth their weight in gold. Who else would think it's an interesting challenge to decipher the scribbles in the margin of a letter and translate them perfectly into a three sentence paragraph? Who else knows the names and addresses of all 100 clients? Who else remembers and corrects the appropriate spelling for John, Johan and Jon; Alexsis, Alexis and Alex (all women)? Who else knows whether the cryptic note on my calendar is an appointment for chiropractic for me, or the horse, and appropriately reports my location to the partners who are looking for me?

I've been extremely lucky to have a very talented, committed, patient, reliable, and careful assistant for more than a decade. Not only does Mary know everything that is necessary to get quality work out the door on time, she also has the patience of a saint dealing with someone who, well, definitely is not. I know she's always trying to make the day go better, and she's often protecting me from my own bad habits. Also, she has a wicked green thumb, and is generous enough to apply it to keep me well-supplied with gorgeous plants in my office.

Many thanks, Mary.

Women Chief Justices

2010-09-20T20:30:00.000-07:00

Here's a neat event: The Golden Gate University School of Law Second Annual Chief Justice Ronald M. George Lecture this year is a panel presentation by sitting and former women Chief Justices. The panelists are Chief Justice Christine Durham (Utah), Justice Dana Fabe (Alaska), Chief Justice Janice Holder (Tennessee), Chief Justice Barbara Madsen (Washington) and Hon. Leah Ward Sears (Georgia). It's on October 12, 2010, at the PG&E Auditorium in San Francisco. Tickets can be purchased online here.

Mark your calendar.

Cynthia

Haiku #21

2010-09-17T19:48:00.000-07:00

Deer season ends. Next
Headhunters target lawyers
Now hunting big bucks.

Superhero Bill Coblentz

2010-09-14T21:30:00.000-07:00

I first posted this on August 9, 2010, and I am sad to report that yesterday Bill passed to a better place. He is greatly missed and deeply mourned by all who loved him.

It's no big insight to comment on the role that mentors play in the personal success and professional achievement of young lawyers, men and women alike. And I don't know whether there's any real insight in telling people to thank their mentors, but that's what I'm going to do today.

I spent yet another wonderful lunch hour today (ok, it was an hour and a half for you billable hour police) with one of the most important mentors in my professional career, Bill Coblentz. He's a hero to hundreds, if not thousands, of lawyers and business people, and I'm just a bit player in his firm. I doubt that I have anything particularly unique to say about Bill. More than anything, I want to thank him, in as public a way as I can, for his encouragement and his generosity of spirit over the past 16 years.

Many of us who grew up under his wing thought his willingness to throw us into the deep end invited death by drowning, and that he must have enjoyed seeing the shock and fear in our eyes as we went forth with whatever legal task he alone in the firm thought we were capable of. But isn't that the way the deep end works? It's supposed to be deep water, otherwise one doesn’t bother learning to swim.

I also thought his amazing ability to remember names and connections must be some sort of trick. For years I thought he must have known a clever mnemonic or some sort of parlor game that makes it easy to remember names and relationships. It became clear as the years went by that his supernatural ability is his deep personal interest in people; it's not a trick, it's a gift.

Bill loves to help people solve their problems, and his ability to inspire confidence among his clients taught me the importance of taking on the client's challenge as if it were my own. All successful lawyers know how to research, write and analyze legal issues. The supernatural ones, like Bill, also have the ability to care deeply and to inspire confidence: because of that heartfelt personal concern, the problem will be handled in the best interests of the client.

Thanks Bill, for teaching me everything that is important in being a lawyer.

I am Linked IN

2010-09-07T23:34:00.000-07:00

Regular readers know I'm a fan of using so-called social networks for professional networking. I've used LinkedIn for some time, and two recent huge successes have made me a cheerleader, again. I admit I went through a bit of a dry spell where I did little other than accept connection requests from other people hopping on the bandwagon--in fact I think for the first six months of this year I hardly visited the LinkedIn site. But in the last several weeks the power of connections helped two important clients in really meaningful ways, and I'm hard-pressed to think of any other way I could have been helpful to my clients in the required time frame, had I not had the electronic networking capability of LinkedIn at my disposal.

In the first situation, about three weeks ago a client called with a fairly desperate request--a complicated, multi-party development effort spearheaded by a European nonprofit several years ago had hit a serious roadblock when one of the corporate partners merged with an international firm and the key contact disappeared. My client needed to reach someone at the surviving parent company to try to get the project back on track, before the whole project imploded, which would have been embarrassing to the government of the African nation involved, the nonprofit, a global political consortium, and of course the corporate partner. The client had tried everything to get the attention of the parent, to no avail after many months of effort.

I had no contacts with the parent company, and after a few false starts with contacts that came readily to mind, it occurred to me as a last resort to try LinkedIn. Amazingly, a key employee of a current client, with whom I had worked a little over the years, had a close connection to an employee of the corporate parent whose job title was right on target. Within a few days, after only a little phone tag (the key contact was on vacation) I was able to connect the client to a person high enough in the company to actually make some headway.

In the second case, on the Thursday before Labor Day weekend (a notoriously difficult week to reach ANYONE, as all sane folks are either on vacation, or, alternatively, completely unavailable as they rush around with back to school parenting duties), a client was desperately seeking a lawyer in a midwestern city to protect a family of three small children who were in an extremely precarious situation because of parental substance abuse problems. I started with the usual: any law firm connections through my firm's nationwide partnerships? Nada. Any suggestions from my undergrad and law school networks? Nope. Then a quick search on LinkedIn, focusing on the target city and legal aid for minors, led me indirectly (through another client contact) to a professor at a law school in the key city, who had a strong interest with a related specialty. So on Friday morning right before Labor Day, that professor actually called me back, in large part I think because of the connection through a mutual professional colleague, and by noon on Friday I had a phone number for an excellent lawyer in the right city for my client. She reached the lawyer that afternoon, and all though I can't say that the children lived happily ever after, I know that at least for the weekend, the kids and the client were helped in a very meaningful way.

If you haven't seriously worked on developing a marketing savvy page on LinkedIn, and also developed a list of quality connections, you really should. Your clients will be enormously grateful one day when you use that network to help them out.

So, yes, I am a fan. It's important to take note of the reason LinkedIn worked for me--I have a pretty extensive network in my field, including lawyers and nonlawyers, nearly all of whom know my work and my practice area well. When I reached out for that personal introduction that makes a huge difference in whether a stranger is willing to take the time it requires to send another person in the right direction, in both of these cases my contact jumped right on the task and made the introduction in glowing terms to the person who really could help my client.

My clients were enormously appreciative and thought my ability to solve their problems stemmed from my brilliant abilities as a lawyer--but that's really not what made the day for them. It's nothing about me or my capability as a lawyer, it's about the quality of my network. So many of the people I know and connect with professionally have the same passion for the nonprofit sector as I do, and they want to help, if given the chance. Thanks to the technology of the LinkedIn network, I was able to connect with people who wanted to help me and help my clients. That's pretty amazing.

Resilience

2010-08-26T21:03:00.000-07:00

First, before reading my pithy remarks today, you've just got to watch this video.

Everyone who rides horses knows that if you come off, you must get right back on. There are two reasons for this. First, if the rider doesn't get right back up, there's a good chance it will be a long time before the fear caused by the incident will be conquered. To ride horses means one must simply be resilient, must bounce back, must try again.

Second, if you don't get back on, pretty soon the horse learns that unseating the rider is an effective evasion. That's really bad for the horse, because eventually that sort of behavior leads to the glue factory.

Those of us who love to ride force ourselves to overcome anxiety about being hurt by the creatures, because our love for the sport outweighs our desire for self preservation. There are many riders for whom this is no great feat, they've never really been much concerned about injury. They're not the brave riders, they're the ones we often call stupid brave. Fun to watch, not necessarily resilient, but just off the scale in their willingness to take personal risks.

The most courageous people, though, are the ones who aren't so sanguine about the hazards, but have to consciously force themselves to be resilient. And even more awesome are those whose life experiences make it unusually difficult to get back on knowing how bad it is when disasters happen, when life gets tough, when friends and lovers die or abandon them and the hurt is too great to risk again. It is a real accomplishment just to get back on when you know you could get thrown again and that it will really hurt. But you keep getting on. That's not stupid brave, that's true courage, and its awesome.

To the women I know who keep "getting back on" after bad falls in their professional careers and personal lives, my hat (usually, my helmet) is off to you. You are my inspiration when it seems too hard to try again.

M is for Meetings and Multi-tasking

2010-08-19T19:45:00.000-07:00

The letter of the day today is "M". I attend a lot of board meetings for clients and for personal purposes, and like all the rest of you also have to attend my share of administrative and business meetings. Having attended so many well organized, planned and productive meetings, I'm pretty impatient with meeting organizers who don't do the job of making a meeting work. In fact it's one of my pet peeves. I'm happy to report that I just left a really well run board meeting so I'm in a fairly good mood. And that's a good thing for writing this post. For tips on what makes a good meeting worthwhile for its participants, read What is a Meeting from several years ago. Not much has changed since then, except for one thing that I didn't rage about then, but will now, even though I'm in such a darn cheerful mood.

If I ran the world, I'd take away everyone's smart phone when they enter the meeting room. NOTHING is more disrespectful than attending an hour long meeting and constantly checking the blackberry. If a meeting is so low in content that every member can be watching their email throughout the entire meeting, then everyone should just go home. I might make an exception for an all day board meeting or business retreat where people in attendance are in the middle of a closing, but for heaven's sake over the lunch hour one can't be without access? That's as serious an addiction as drinking at lunch. Perhaps someone in recovery from BB addiction can start a 12 step program for access junkies.

I know, I know, you're just so darn busy that you have to multi-task. That's my other M word today. And you bet I love to multi-task, which is what I'm doing right now. This is the second time I've written and posted to the blog from the BART train so I'm racing to get all my thoughts out and links connected between tunnels. I'm all in favor of using down time (like commuting, standing in line at Safeway, waiting for Darling to be released from soccer practice) to check emails or upload photos to facebook.

But show some respect for your professional colleagues and give them your complete attention in meetings. Or, alternatively, show them just how much you disrespect their time.

Women and Law Reviews

2010-08-17T20:27:00.000-07:00

Just when I thought I was going to have to re-publish some tirade I wrote in the past several years, a new topic comes along thanks to my favorite reader. It hadn't actually occurred to me to wonder whether there was still bias at the law school law reviews. According to AboveTheLaw's recent post Minorities and Women and Law Reviews, Oh My! there are some schools where there seems to be a lack of balance among male and female representation on that icon of law school success, the law review. I have to believe that it is something other than insidious discrimination against women in those rare schools where the male to female ratio is not in balance with the student body. Perhaps someone will do a more statistically sound survey of law review composition.

The more disturbing statistics reported in the AboveTheLaw post relate to the under-represented minorities. The article suggests that it is more of a pipeline problem than a discrimination challenge. Either way, the top law schools really should pay attention to the apparent problem. I don't think UCLA's approach makes sense, though: the idea that law review applicants should write what amounts to a personal statement in order to improve their chances of being selected seems childish. As lawyers, we don't get to write personal statements about why our client's views should provide a better negotiated agreement, or why the jury should rule in our client's favor because the lawyer is a woman, or a minority. Sure, there will always be prejudgement, bias, favoritism, firm politics, and favored "insiders" whose views are received more favorably even if misguided, unprepared and wrong. But success in this profession isn't doled out on the basis of compelling personal statements. Maybe it should be, but it's not.

Law school is about the right time to face the reality and meet it head on.