I recently watched the docuseries about Hillary Rodham Clinton on Hulu and in the past half year watched National Geographic series Genius: Einstein, which prominently explored the role that his first wife, Mileva Einstein-Maric, played in his scientific discoveries.
Besides the powerful role that Hillary played in Bill Clinton’s career before stepping into her own leadership roles in politics and the direct contributions that Mileva made on Einstein’s revered work, there are other examples I recently stumbled across that I found fascinating: Microbiologists, Esther Lederberg and her husband, Joshua, collaborated on research in microbial genetics. He won half of the 1958 Nobel Peace Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering bacterial conjugation. Since Esther was equally responsible for the discovery, it would stand to reason she won the other half of the prize. She did not. Her husband received all the credit and honors for their joint discovery. The other half went to two male geneticists for their joint discovery in biochemical genetics.
A similar story surrounds Candace Pert, who was a student at John Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1978. She was hands-on in discovering the receptor that allows opiates to lock into the brain. So groundbreaking was this discovery to the neuroscience community that Candace’s professor, Dr. Solomon Snyder was awarded the 1978 Albert Lasker Award, generally a precursor to the Nobel Peace Prize. Candace wrote a protest letter to the awards committee outlining her contributions to the discovery, but to no avail. The letter caused quite the stir because it was viewed as an example of the obstacle’s women faced in the field of science.
Here we are, more than 40 years later with some of the same barriers existing across many male-dominated fields, including law.
In a comprehensive study of women in corporate America entitled Women in the Workplace, McKinsey & Company in partnership with leanin.org revealed that professionals networking and receiving advice on career advancement from their upper level leaders are most likely to be promoted. In professional services, including law, more than 60% of leaders are men. Yet, women are five times more likely to network with other women. Meaning, women are not getting as much access to the leaders who can influence their advancement as their male counterparts. In this time of remote work and online communications being the only form of personalized communication, could this be a game-changing time for women, finally? It has been roughly 40 years since women began entering the legal field in significant numbers. Since that time, surveys by various entities, including the National Association of Women Lawyers and The American Lawyer have been tracking the progress of women in law.
If you know me, you know that I have advocated that innovation in law can be the great equalizer for women, and even a propeller. In my book, The Simple Guide to Legal Innovation, I devote a chapter to the powerful combination of women and innovation. Compared to other industries, the legal field is behind the times when it comes to innovation. While this is still a critical problem for the legal field, it does present an opportunity for women to be seen and heard in ways we never have before.
We, as female attorneys, have an unprecedented chance to be trailblazers in legal innovation practices. But why us and why now? It’s simple; there is no advantage needed. All we need to do is lean into the skills we inherently possess, such as empathy, efficiency, and the metaphoric juggling of work and family that we already do every day. Being an innovation leader does not require us to spend more time at the office (especially not in the midst of a pandemic climate) or trying to please our upper-level leaders, as we often do in our race to be viewed in the same light as male counterparts.
Another benefit of women revolutionizing ways of delivering legal services could be retention of these very capable resources in their law firms. Unfortunately, every year we see large numbers of talented women separating from the legal field. A study published by the American Bar Association outlined many of the reasons women are leaving their firms, including being overlooked for promotions and pay increases, denied access to career development opportunities, subjected to double-standards, and sexual harassment.
We know we are not on a level playing field and the rules of the game don’t always apply to us. So, let’s let’s change the rules.
As I write this, we are in the 100-year anniversary of women’s suffrage in the US and yet women in all industries have been and continue to be behind the scenes in too many major innovations and breakthroughs.
Our window of opportunity is wide-open and unlike Esther Lederberg and Candice Pert, the true legal innovators–the women in law today–will take our place upfront and in the spotlight, as the lawyers who embraced innovation and changed the landscape of the legal field forever.