Women lawyers are landing seats on boards of directors at unprecedented rates, but those securing the roles, or aspiring to, say a host of stereotypes and biases—about both females and attorneys—are preventing the trend from playing out at full tilt.

Some board and company leaders, the vast majority of whom continue to be men, cling to the notion of attorneys as "legal functionaries," rather than as corporate strategists, or write off lawyers, especially female lawyers, as having mostly non-operational or support-function experience, according to researchers and attorneys pursuing board posts.