No one is safe when it comes to workplace discrimination, not even female attorneys are safe. No matter your industry, you could be a New York Judge or a Supreme Court Justice, gender discrimination is a pervasive problem in American workplaces.
Discrimination at the Supreme Court
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently discussed the evolution of the women’s rights movement, what it is like to be interrupted on the bench by her male colleagues—i.e. “mansplaining.” “Everyone knew that racism is an odious thing,” Justice Ginsburg said of the late 1960s and 1970s. “But when I started out in this business, I had a persuasion job to do, because most men — men on the bench — thought that discrimination based on gender worked benignly in women’s favor.”
In fact, it was institutional gender discrimination that pushed Justice Ginsburg into her legal career. When she and her late husband, were planning to go to Harvard University for graduate school, the Ivy League school did not accept women, which left the law school as her only option. Later when Ginsburg became one of nine women in a Harvard Law School class of nearly 600, she found herself being told by the dean at a dinner that she was “taking the place of a man.” “Today, the discriminations are more subtle,” Ginsburg said and unconscious bias is a major problem.
Discrimination in New York
According to the 2017 Glass Ceiling Report, only 35% of lawyers working at top law firms are female, only 20% equity partners are women, and of the 300 firms included in the report, only nine had women make up a majority of their workforces. In a report released August 3, 2017, by the commercial and federal litigation section of the New York State Bar Association, it was found that women attorneys account for only 25% of lead counsel roles in New York courtrooms. “The low percentage of women attorneys appearing in a speaking role in courts was found at every level and in every type of court: upstate and downstate, federal and state, trial and appellate, criminal and civil, ex parte applications and multiparty matters,” the report said. Moreover, the report showed that “the more complex the case, the less likely that a woman appeared as lead counsel,” the report said.
Former U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin of the Southern District of New York helped initiate the project. She stated, “We hope the report is widely disseminated and studied by lawyers in the public and private sectors, in-house counsel, and members of the judiciary… The time has come to turn things around. We look forward to seeing a real improvement when we repeat the study in two years.”
What is the cause of the lack of women being represented in law? Is subtle unconscious bias the problem? Luckily, the report also includes suggested solutions, such as law firm leaders assigning female attorneys to work with a partner who will not only see that they go to court, but that they also participate in the courtroom proceedings.
Change must come now, clients, the community, the legal world missing out on by women being under-represented in the legal world. Female attorneys and judges are equally as competent men, possess valuable skills, and are needed in order help more people in need of an attorney. Confidently as more employees take legal action, law firms will feel pressure to prevent gender bias in their workplaces.
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