Hillary Clinton at Yale

The Kansas City star has an article about Hillary Clinton’s years at Yale Law School and how it shaped her career afterwards.  Since she met Bill there, I wonder if they ever studied together.  I wonder if they made their own outlines and flashcards.  I wonder if they ever played “Strip Flashcards” –as in you have to take off an article of clothing every time you miss an answer to question.

Hahaha

GE Class Action Gets The Go-Ahead

Class actions are important because people who otherwise don’t have the resources to bring a lawsuit can nonetheless be compensated. But from a defending company’s perspective, it can also mean that the heightened sense of systematic wrong-doing may lead to inflated damages or punitive damages.

The newswires  are all abuzz with the recently certification of a class action for gender discrimination against GE.  The potential class members include female entry-level executives and female lawyers (the class representative is a lawyer).  There is, of course, still the discovery and trial itself to get through, but certification is a big first hurdle.

What does this do for GE’s public image? Nothing good, I’m sure.

A female prosecutor in real life and a couple in the movies

There is a list of female prosecutors in the movies if you scroll to the bottom of The Scotman’s profile on author and former assistant district attorney Linda Fairstein by Jackie McGlone.  But if you don’t read the profile, you would be missing out because she has accomplished a lot in her career which began at a time when female prosecutors were few in numbers. 

For Law & Order fans out there, this excerpt may interest you:

If all of this sounds like an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, then that’s because the excellent TV series is based on the ground-breaking work and distinguished career of Fairstein, who pioneered the use of DNA evidence to identify sex offenders. Her unique Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit (SCPU) was established in 1974 for victims of domestic, sexual and child abuse and she was its director for more than 25 years.

Indeed, Fairstein’s alter ego in Law & Order – Assistant DA Alex Cabot, whose initials are a homage to Fairstein’s own fictional heroine, Alex Cooper – is played by the icily glamorous Stephanie March, who shadowed Fairstein to see how her work was done.

After reading this article, I plan on looking for her books right away!  She, and her protagonist, seem like feisty and empowered women. 

Young women finding work-life balance early in their careers

Law.com has an article this week about female lawyers making decisions to have the work-life balance they want earlier in their careers rather than forcing themselves to compete with the workaholics at large firms. 

I must say, working at 10 pm at night is way more enjoyable than being at work at 11 am.  At home, I’m in comfy clothes and I don’t have to shuffle through everyone else’s print jobs every time I print.  Working from home is great if you have the discipline! 

W.I.L.D. Woman to Watch: Mayawati Kumari

I am always interested in learning about how other female lawyers have used their law degrees or legal education outside of litigation since litigation is basically all I know.  Politicians often have a legal background.  This Reuters article features someone to watch: Mayawati Kumari, the leader of India’s low-caste Bahujan Samaj party in Uttar Pradesh state.   Mayawati is the first Dalit woman to become the Chief Minister of any of India’s states.

She studied law at the University of Delhi.  I’m sure that her law degree prepared her for many things in life, but administering to a group of Dalits numbering 170 million people is not something anyone can truly be prepared for through classroom education.  No matter how law schools teach the laws and legal theories on equality, discrimination, justice, and the rights of the poor, one can’t really “learn” how to identify with the poor.  Either you do or you don’t, in my opinion.  Clearly, she knows how to give voice to these people although she is not ‘poor’ by any means now.

Perfect gifts for lawyers

Here is an online store that prints slogans and logos on mugs, t-shirts, etc.  They have a section for “lawyers” or “attorneys.”

I personally think the “attorney work product” bibs are hilarious. 

This gift is great for your lawyer wife/mom/daughter/friend if they work with patents. I went to law school with a couple of female IP lawyers and I think they would find it amusing too!

Are you getting the assignments you want?

Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly has a short Q&A with the author of “Ending the Gauntlet: Removing Barriers to Women’s Success in the Law,” Lauren Stiller Rikleen.  In her research, she found some gender differences:

Q. Are there institutional impediments to the retention and advancement of women lawyers, and, if so, how can they be overcome?

A. We see gender differences in the assignment process; not that women don’t get good assignments, but when there are the less attractive assignments that invariably exist in any firm, women tend to get more of those assignments than their male colleagues do.

Read this question and make sure that it doesn’t happen to you. Don’t be shy to ask for the assignments you want because if you don’t, someone else will!

Have you ever cried at work?

In this Boston.com article, women weigh in on Hillary Clinton’s “moment” before the New Hampshire primary.  The women that the author of the article interviewed were sympathetic to the uncharacteristic showing of vulnerability that the candidate expressed and which commentators have said may have gained her some votes.

Some of the women in the article quoted are partners at law firms.  I must say that in the highly charged environment that law firms are generally, it’s not uncommon to see tears. At my current small(er) firm, I am surprised to say that I haven’t seen any (yet).  At my old job, I remember that I’ve shed a few tears of frustration in my office, other female associates and secretaries have cried in my office, I’ve comforted other crying women in their office, in the bathroom, etc.  

Is it a sign of weakness? Or a good sign that we invest so much, emotionally speaking, in our jobs and the people we work with?

Using Business Intelligence In Law Firm To Track Diversity

There’s a new article on CIO’s website titled “How a Global Law Firm Used Business Intelligence to Fix Customer Billing Woes” that features how the global law firm Bryan Cave is using their billing data to track projects as part of their diversity efforts.  The article says:

Bryan Cave partners use business intelligence tools from Redwood Analytics as well as tools constructed in-house using Microsoft’s OLAP tools (SQL Server, Analysis Services, Reporting Services) to forecast what effect various pricing and staffing decisions will have on a project.

The tools also allow lawyers to track budgets in real time so they can quickly make adjustments. The BI tools even provide a diversity dashboard, which tracks the hourly mix of women and minorities working on the firm’s cases, a feature the company will license to Redwood Analytics for sale to other law firms, Alber says. The firm developed this diversity tool to bring transparency to the diversity reporting process required by many clients, says Alber.

In an age of transparency for clients, this is a great development.  This way, law firms will have hardcopy proof of their diversity successes/failures.  Also, reporting by the women and minorities that do the work will not only be anecdotal, but there will be hard figures to back their perspectives of whether they are getting equal treatment.

Are you a pretty lawyer?

A lot of legal news-watching blogs this week are discussing a story in The Economist which talks about research in the correlation between beauty and intelligence and financial success.  The part of the article that has everyone’s keyboards clicking is this:

…Dr [Daniel] Hamermesh looked at the careers of members of a particular (though discreetly anonymous) American law school. He found that those rated attractive on the basis of their graduation photographs went on to earn higher salaries than their less well-favoured colleagues. Moreover, lawyers in private practice tended to be better looking than those working in government departments.

Interesting.  I guess maybe I should put more of an effort to put on makeup for work.  I really should.  I just haven’t been able to find a foundation that matches my skin tone!!

Ah well, we can’t all be gorgeous.  Both Justice Ginsburg and I still managed to find great lawyer-husbands though, so really, isn’t that more important than financial success?