My sister was a litigator for the federal government. She got tired of the long hours and politics and now teaches at an elementary school. She is much happier spending time with her kids and husband. Women in law, in general, seem to be much more driven to succeed and, dare I say it, seem to work more intelligently/efficiently than the men by necessity. From observation of my sister's situation, gender discrimination against women still exists in law. If given a choice, I'd hire a woman attorney to do work rather than a man since they have to do things better than men just by the nature of the industry attitudes.

The numbers are even worse than we can see. Not only are women clustered at the bottom of equity partner compensation lists, as Angie points out, but some of those 'equity' partners contribute capital but do not share in profits. See the last few NAWL Annual Survey Reports for the data.. Again, it's likely these women are labeled 'equity' partners so firms can pretend that their numbers are better than they really are.
WILEF should consider having a criterion that digs deeper into the equity partner definition -- i.e., that it excludes anyone who merely earns salary and bonus, irrespective of whether that person, man or woman, has contributed capital to his/her firm.

Angie is right. And the above 6 criteria are so unequal. Being the "head" of an office is miles different than being in the 10% of top half of compensation. Running an office, at my former Firm (I was an equity Partner and was there 20+ years) was a pain in the behind and given little credit and took away from the only thing Firm's care about -- bringing in big clients with big billings. Similarly, Firms are now putting women on the top Executive Committees even if they don't meet the original criteria (e.g., have the highest # of shares available for automatic entry) just as token members to make the numbers look better. They rotate them off as well. They are not permanent members. Being head of a practice group is hardly an honor. Most big Firms now have about 50 practice groups and multiple co-chairs of practice groups. They are now adding women as "co-chairs" to make the numbers look good and because they hope the women will do all the work. It's all administrative work anyway and dumped on the women! That's all Compensation C'ee work is as well -- administrative work given little or no credit at year end even though one can spend 100's of hours each year on that C'ee. I find it hard to believe all these firms have 20% female equity partners because I worked at one of the above and they had about 14% recently, although they hide the equity vs. non-equity partner status to the public. The 2 keys are female % of equity partners and compensation level. 20 years ago, the Firm I joined had about 13% female partners and the needle hasn't really moved in all that time. Second, out of the top number of shares, only one female partner ever received 80% of those and that is the highest ever in the history of the Firm. The vast majority are under the 50% mark. Also, female partners don't stay until retirement in anywhere near the number that men stay. In my former Firm, there are only about 10 retired female equity partners ever (and many of those retired at early retirement 55 or first full retirement at 60). I can't think of one who stayed beyond 60. So out of all the female partners at the Firm, only 10 made it to 55 or older. That is stunning! That should be a criteria as well. This shows female partners LEAVE in droves even after making partner. Why? Because they see the male partners getting more shares than they get at year's end. And they see the male partners getting more opportunities than they get. And the vast majority of the male partners still have wives who stay home and do ALL of the household tasks and child rearing tasks for the family so the male partner can focus almost 100% on business. There are some single mothers who are female partners who have to juggle it all -- business 24/7, kids 24/7, household tasks 24/7, etc., and who have to travel for business often leaving young kids at home with nannies or cobbled-together child care. The male partners mostly don't have to deal with any of these issues. Firm's pay lip to service to addressing this issue with Part-Time Partner policies but once you take that route, your career is dead. You are always referred to as a "part-timer" and presumed to have less commitment and drive. Pay becomes stagnant or slowly drops.

The firms aren't boasting; they're just trying to avoid getting hauled into court for bogus discrimination suits.

As to Angie's comment, its not men who are doing the "othering"; rather, its women who are - this column being the perfect example. Anyway, I do agree with Angie for something - since guys have overachieved women throughout all of history and will continue to do so for the remainder of it, in order for our daughters and granddaughters to not hit the "same wall," it will require daddy government to come in and force companies to hire underqualified women to eliminate that "wall" called our true nature.

This is a very useful set of criteria, although the baselines are depressingly low and just reiterate that the representation of women in equity partnerships has barely moved in 10 or 15 years of (claimed) sustained effort across the industry.

The bare numbers, however, are only part of the story. These standards go beneath them to reveal to everyone what female partners already know, that they congregate at the bottom of partner compensation lists, and have minimal management participation.

I'm not sure what '10% of the top half of the most highly compensated partners' actually means, but in my firm there was, I believe, only one woman in the top half of the entire equity partnership compensation list.

This underlying polarization is the reason that the base numbers have not budged. The decision-makers, and the institutional clients whose fees determine who those decision-makers are, are mostly male.

There is embedded, structural bias maintaining this gender disparity. The reasons for it are much more complex and deeply rooted than overt discrimination, which has been very significantly addressed in the 20 years I have been in practice. They reduce to a simple conclusion, however; men are in charge because men are in charge. Like attracts like, women are the 'other.' Primarily this results in a working culture which penalises mothers, but it also excludes women generally.

To throw some light on this exceptionally difficult barrier to advancement is a good first step. Removing it will be much harder and, all the time it remains, those bare numbers will remain moreorless where they are now. It's my belief that political action is the only way. Without that, our daughters, granddaughters and generations that follow, will be hitting the same wall that we do today.

These are turbulent times for law firms. The economy is still reeling, several prestigious firms have collapsed, and layoffs have been rampant. No doubt about it, this sector is feeling the recession. But for working-mom lawyers, who’ve long sought more flexibility, this may be just the moment they’ve been waiting for.