|
Making it work: Women in law roundtable |
|
|
|
|
Page 2 of 3
ON ROLE MODELS
CRONK: We didn’t have the role models [in Canada]. They certainly weren’t in England, but they were in the U.S., both in the judiciary and the practice. So, there was just a whole convergence, I think, of that. So, it was a real sense of women trying to make it, period, that was not either unique to or restricted to the law. And so, women began to look to those other women, both for support, and for clients, and business development, and for mentoring.
ROTHSTEIN: I wasn’t aware of the role models in the States. But I was aware of Eleanore Cronk and Sheila Block [of Torys] years before I met them, and I hung on to those names, I can’t tell you, fiercely, fiercely, for years, before I ever met them, because they were out there doing it, and we were all aware that they were, right. And, in fact, you [Cronk] drove me home from an inquest in 1986. I showed up for a small client. You were on for the Toronto Western Hospital, as it then was, in a senior role. And at the end of one day, she drove me home . . . and chatted with me with like I was a lawyer, and I knew what I was doing, and even sort of suggested that I had done a good job. That kept me going for a couple of years.
CHOWN: And, as Linda says, I remember at law school in the trial advocacy course . . . if you wanted to be a litigator, you go to this course, and week after week, male litigators would come, and I would be saying, “I don’t think that is a model.” Then Sheila Block came, and I went, “Oh, what is this?” . . . absolutely stellar litigator, and . . .very effective. And I thought, “I could be one.”
ON SACRIFICES
CHOWN: It is such a busy career. If I look as a litigator and as a parent, I could do those two things, but I didn’t do things for myself. So, where male colleagues are playing squash, and playing hockey, and doing other things that men do when they get together . . . there was just no time for that. So, it is a sacrifice that you don’t like to acknowledge at the time.
ROTHSTEIN: I feel like some of my female friendships suffered over the years. I mean, I still have some very, very old friends, thank God, but there was very little time for them. So, they have had to be very patient with me, because, like Kirby, I felt like there were only two things that I could possibly do at the same time, and that was raise children and practise law.
MORAN: I guess I find it hard to imagine a world where I wouldn’t push myself hard to do what seems to matter. So, when I think about it, I think what I have sacrificed, but it was probably inevitable, was ease. I have no ease in my life.
CRONK: But if you look back on it after however many numbers of years it is — 25-plus for some at the table, 30 for a couple of us — I had no sense of making sacrifices at the time. But when I look back on it, what was lost is hours and hours and hours time, just time, thinking of the amount of time in the first 10 or 15 years of your career that you devoted to your career, as opposed to your friends or your family or your non-law interests. The numbers would be so scary, I believe, if one were to ever add them up.
ON GETTING AHEAD
CHOWN: I have two pieces of advice: Number 1, as a young woman, try and go to a firm that has an interest and a commitment to trying to deal with issues around retention of women, and being a more family-friendly place. Unless you are very resilient and very willing to be a pioneer, it is a hard road to deal with as the youngest member of a firm to try and make changes. But secondly, I think we as women have to continue to advocate for our very conservative profession, looking at ways that law firms of all sizes and shapes can more fairly and adequately deal with women with young children, because it is an enormous brain drain if the profession doesn’t get there.
ROTHSTEIN: But I think women have to get the confidence to say it is long term. I actually think that is a leap of faith for most women, to be able to say to themselves in their early years, “I actually am going to make it. I am going to get there. It doesn’t really matter if I become a partner one year earlier. I am good. I can do this.” And the same thing about the kids. Absolutely the same approach about their kids, that, you know, there are going to be some slips and falls all over the place, but it is all going to work out. They love their kids. Their kids are going to love them. It is going to sort itself out.
MORAN: [I]t also really important to try to find a basis for hope because hope can push change, you know. And if you don’t feel there is hope, then you are not going to stay and push for change.
CRONK: That debate is going to have to be held. But it is going to take things like that outside the big law firms to actually help legions of women who are trying to cope with this, because . . . the majority of women aren’t practising in the firms, or the environments represented by women at this table. They are in law firms of five or fewer. And they don’t have the support in their [firms]. So, frankly, I have lost patience with the male managing partners, or the men of influence in the major firms who do not appreciate this is an issue because it was an issue 15 years ago, and they allowed it. [What] is causing Kirby’s male counterparts to pay attention, apart from people like Kirby and people like Linda, is there is this hemorrhaging of women from the big law firms. So now, it is a business issue. And the people who aren’t paying attention are losing the economic consequences of it. So, I think the wake-up call is late, but I don’t care to make it religion, as long as I get religion.
CHOWN: There is another thing that women have to be very careful of in law firms is not always accepting the tasks that go to women. So, you must resist being the one who organizes the social events, or runs the art committee, and you must strive to be on the committee that divides up the money for the partners, or the committee that is doing business planning for your practice group, because those are the committees that actually contain, again, the elements of power and information.
CRONK: They have to be just a little bit more assertive in saying . . . what was the tradition when I was trained in the ‘70s and ‘80s, “I want a piece of the argument, I want to be on my feet”, because the comparison is, on the defence and Crown side that we see in the courts, there is a whole caldron of just astoundingly accomplished women in the Crown offices at the appellate level and at the trial level, and defence counsel who are on their feet every day. And on the civil side, they are not getting even counsel roles. So, they should be more assertive in doing that.
ON NETWORKING
SWANSBURG: Well, as a client now, I would put it a little differently in the sense that it is . . . I don’t golf, and I can tell you it is phenomenal the number of times I have been invited to golf, and people are quite astounded that I don’t golf, because I am a lawyer, after all, and even a lot of female lawyers golf, but I don’t golf. And so, I always appreciate the opportunity to have sort of female-oriented events, if only because so many of the traditional client development opportunities are not very female friendly.
MORAN: I go out to events a lot, but I am a social person, so that really helps. But, I need to get up and go around and talk to people and make them know who I am, and it is a lot of work. [T]he female deans get together, so that is a great opportunity, and I think those things are really important. But, at the same time, I would imagine that it is the same for most women in leadership positions, you actually, ultimately, need to be able to bring people with power on board, and most of those people are still men.
ROTHSTEIN: I would be considered, in my firm, a pretty good rainmaker for a woman, and that is fair. People wouldn’t say that about some of the other things that I can do, but in the rainmaking department, they would say I am pretty good for a woman. But I can’t compete with my male colleagues. I just am nowhere close to as good as my male colleagues at bringing in significant business. I have tons of female contacts. I have lots of professional contacts. I might even be almost as well known as some of my male colleagues. But I can’t come close to bringing in the important work that my male colleagues can. And I think it is because I still find that part of the business quite difficult. I don’t golf. Sporting events I like, but I don’t love. So, it is an important element still, as long as men continue to hold traditions of power and have money, that we find ways, not only to network with other women, because that part I actually find easy and enjoyable and kind of stressless and effortless. And this is a typical example, you know, put me in a room with women and serve us breakfast and we are all happy and we can stay forever. And I don’t feel like I don’t have anything to say. But with men, it is still a real challenge, even with my seniority.
|
|
|
|
|
