Last month, the New York State Bar Association published a report revealing that only about 25 percent of attorneys with speaking roles in New York courts are women. Responding to the study, Judge Shira Scheindlin described, in a New York Times op-ed, an all too familiar scene: A male senior partner is asked a tough question in court, he turns to the young woman next to him who hurriedly whispers something brilliant in his ear, and he knocks the answer out of the park.

The study shocked me. But the anecdote didn't.

While I'm lucky enough to count myself among the 25 percent of women who have argued in New York state and federal courts, I've also been that young woman whispering to the male senior partner. So what can we—young, bright women attorneys—do to launch ourselves from one category to the next? What can we do to make our voices heard?