2018 Women in Law Roundtable Participants 

Sharon Caffrey, Duane Morris; Lesli Esposito, DLA Piper; Mary Beth H. Gray, Kleinbard LLC; Alexis C. Handrich, Pond Lehocky Stern Giordano; Donna L. Kreiser, McNees Wallace & Nurick; Suzanne Mayes, Cozen O'Connor; Lori Miller, Goldberg Miller & Rubin; Carolyn Mirabile, Weber Gallagher Simpson Stapleton Fires & Newby; Lakeisha R. Robinson, formerly of Burns White, currently at Reilly McDevitt & Henrich; Amy L. Rosenberger, Willig Williams & Davidson; Casey Ryan, Reed Smith (moderator)

The editorial staff of The Legal has always been aware that the hiring and retention of female attorneys is an ongoing issue in the legal community. In an effort to discuss some of the specific problems facing female attorneys and present potential solutions to those problems, we invited 10 practitioners to talk about how to bolster the role of women in the law.

This year, the panelists tackled career advancement and the path to partnership, the importance of finding the right mentors, the ever-present dilemma of work flexibility and work-life balance and the issue of gender-pay equality in law firms.

Casey Ryan of Reed Smith, global head of legal personnel and a member of the firm's senior management team, moderated the discussion. Editors selected the panelists from a number of volunteers. The transcript has been lightly edited for space and clarification. Excerpts from the discussion follow:

CASEY RYAN: This panel, is well, composed and includes partners, firm leaders and associates. The topics suggested by the panel reflect not only the issues of the day, but also core issues that go to the heart of a woman's success at a law firm. The first topic that I'd like to discuss is career advancement and the path to partnership.

LORI MILLER:  One of the key factors is recognizing good talent from a first-year associate, and working with them and mentoring them in the beginning years of their career and letting them know that they do have a path to partnership, whatever stages they are going to go through in life. It might be that they start out and they are single, and they are just coming out of law school, and then they get married. Then they want to have children, and letting them know if you work hard now, and you learn your field, you become an expert, you take on responsibility, you know, you have a home at this firm, and we are going to work with you to do whatever we can to keep you. I think that is the key to starting very early, and letting them know there is a path that they can take.

RYAN:  We talked a lot about mentorship, right, and then there is the informal and formal, right? So the formal being the assigned mentor that you get from the firm or the practice group, and the informal is just the organic person that resonates with you. What do you think about the most successful of the two, what you have seen?

The Women in Law Roundtable Discussion, held in The Legal Intelligencer's office in Philadelphia on July 25, 2018. Pictured: Amy L. Rosenberger, with Willig Williams & Davidson. (Photo by Joe Warner)

AMY ROSENBERGER: I have only had experience with the latter. It is sort of a combo of, you know, someone, a new associate comes in. You have someone who is sort of their assigned gatekeeper. You know, they work with maybe different partners on different clients. But for me, I see that role as not just sort of managing, making sure the person's workload is manageable and managed, but training them in how we work as a firm, how to be a good lawyer, how to be successful and looking for opportunities, not just—I mean so much at the beginning is focused on what you were saying, working hard, becoming a good lawyer, but also starting at the very beginning and developing a personal relationship with that person where you can help work with them to figure out where do they plug in on the other elements that are a key to the success, which is finding opportunities for service to the firm, and finding opportunities for exposure externally, whether that, you know, if they're someone who is going to be good for writing articles for the legal world, or doing speaking engagements, or training with clients, or whatever it may be, taking them along on client pitch meetings, sort of paying attention to all of those things from early on.

I actually personally think that women are well suited to identify one's fit within, just because the way we relate to the world, within those realms, and what is going to be a good fit with the other person. This is also true with mentoring men, too. But to address the issues you raised, it is critical I think to really use those kinds of opportunities with women who come in, junior women.

RYAN:  Are there ways thatl aw firms could be better, stronger about making sure that that happens? We talked about it, right, but there are people who will fall through, right, or don't find their natural organic mentor, or don't have the person who is going to be not only their mentor, but their sponsor. You know, the difference being the sponsor is the advocate. You know, someone who is going to go to the firm and say they are great, or they have leadership potential, or they are going to be great on the client front. What are you seeing at your firms that are most effective about making sure that that connection is happening?

CAROLYN MIRABILE: Our office has a diversity committee. I am actually co-chair of the diversity committee, and we really in the last year have worked very hard in trying to engage the managing partners of the firm, which primarily are men, and equity partners, to really start bringing either women or other attorneys of diverse backgrounds to appointments with important clients to keep telling them about the business of diversity, as well as engaging and including people. And I think that I always say in my office, women are the worst people in promoting other women. I hate to say that, but we are. Sometimes we don't promote ourselves or within because I always—if a man goes on an interview, they will say oh, yeah, I can do that, even if they have never done it. Whereas, we are way more honest, and we will say I am not sure if I can do that. We don't promote ourselves, so I think we do have to engage the upper management. And when we would have diversity meetings, I would literally email all the equity partners personally  one by one, and if I saw them, I would say we are having this diversity meeting, you need to be there because if you are going to promote diversity in the firm, they want to see it coming from the top. That's how you are getting more people to come to the meetings. Then when they have an important client meeting or they're traveling somewhere, bring a female or bring someone of a diverse background to start getting them introduced. Just like  you would bring another guy, you have to include everybody. It is hard. You have to be verbal about it. You have to not be afraid to speak up.

DONNA KREISER: We provide our associates an opportunity to evaluate their mentors. It is part of their self-association, a self-evaluation that they do each year. We just completed that process, and they're pretty honest about whether or not their mentors are meeting their needs. We have made changes in mentors as a result of the feedback that we get from associates. Ninety percent of the time the feedback is excellent, but there are times when the relationship isn't working, and so we are deliberate and proactive about making sure they have mentors that are working well for them and with them.

SHARON CAFFREY: I think that the one problem, going back to your initial question, the formal mentoring, is that not everybody is suited to be a mentor, and not every relationship is going to gel. So to me, it is the informal mentoring that is the most important. And it has to happen organically. It has to be with somebody they work with, to bring along a junior associate, or a senior associate to make them partner.

One of the things that I think has worked for the women who have been really successful and risen to partnership at Duane Morris at least, is that they have had that sponsor. They have that person in their corner giving them opportunities, telling them you can take this deposition. You can do this witness at trial. You know, I still remember giving a witness to a young partner who had not cross examined anybody at trial and sitting on my hands saying you can't react. You can't react. Don't do it. She has got to learn, but they learn. But you have to get the clients to buy into that. That's another important piece of it, but I think that to me, the formal mentoring is good so that people don't fall through the cracks. But it is never going to be the same as that organic relationship where somebody feels vested in you.

RYAN: You hit on a really important point, which is a common denominator of a successful woman in law, that in my experience, a lot of them, will be able to point to one or two highly influential mentors who helped them to get the opportunity they needed to advance to the next level. And so the value of it speaks for itself when you look at the success rate, right?

Another thing that firms just started doing, and we just started doing, is reverse mentoring, and I don't know if  any of you are doing this, but it is where an associate is the mentor, and a member of management is the mentee. And it is fascinating. I have a mentor who is a member of the LGBT community, and I meet with him once a month, and he tells me what it is like to be a member of the LGBT community and his experiences with clients, what his experiences in the law firm, what his experiences in business development, and it goes beyond that, of course. But he's mentoring me, and that is really the paradigm of it, and it is fascinating, and the entire global leadership team has got a mentor from the associate or counsel ranks. It has been fascinating. We are only a few months in, but in terms of ideas that you might want to take back, it has been a really highly successful one.

MILLER: How often do you meet?

RYAN: Once a month.

MILLER: For how long?

RYAN: A half an hour, an hour. Sometimes in person, sometimes by phone, but it is a perspective I would not otherwise have.

The Women in Law Roundtable Discussion, held in The Legal Intelligencer's office in Philadelphia on July 25, 2018. Pictured: Lakeisha R. Robinson, formerly with Burns White, now at Reilly McDevitt & Henrich. (Photo by Joe Warner)

LAKEISHA ROBINSON: What prompted you to do it?

RYAN: It was actually a Client who was doing it, who was raving about it, and it just sounded like such a good idea that we would try it, and we did, and it has been a hit.

SUZANNE MAYES: Are the associates kind of identified as your high potential associates, because you couldn't do it for all presumably?

RYAN: Right, we asked all the associates who wanted to participate, and we were able to—

MAYES: Match them.

RYAN: —meet the need. Yes. And I think the next iteration of it will be broader, and more people will do it, but it has been a really good thing.

MAYES: Interesting.

RYAN: In terms of issues that you all wanted to talk about, which are good ones, is path to partnership and work-life balance, and, again, that term is becoming, I think in some circles, it is falling out of favor because people think it is not an apt description of what the real issue is, but it is, so accept the term for a moment. Work-life balance is the correct term. Again, what advice are you giving to associates about how to—I mean I am looking at a table full of women who have sort of cracked the code on being able to do a successful work-life balance. What advice are you giving to your associates on that front?

MAYES:  I will jump in. So when folks ask me, I typically tell them that I don't really think that there is balance, to your first point. It is more about integration of work and career, career and family and trying to figure out what works, and the other thing I tell folks is it is a very personal balance, so that you can't just mimic what you see in terms of women that are 10 or 15 years ahead of you because it can be dictated by things like what the significant other does, number of children, whether the children have any special needs, if there are older parents that need tending to.

I think that a lot of younger women tend to think there is a holy grail, and if they can just identify it, then they can follow it. So I think the first part of success is understanding that there are lots of options, and that you do yourself a disservice if you think there is only one, and what they should really do is educate  themselves by talking to as many women as they can about what works for them, and then pick and choose things that sound like they would be workable in your own circumstances. There are tweaks. I have got one just out of college and one in college, and I still enjoy talking to women with families because I will hear something that I have never thought about or done. And with just a little bit of incorporation of that aspect, you can increase the quality of your life, whether that's in the office or out of the office.

LESLI ESPOSITO: I agree with everything you said, and particularly the part about it being personal because I find—to your point—when I talk to a lot of female associates, some will say at one point in my career I was part-time. At one point in my career I was flextime. At one point I was full-time. You know, they will say which one works best, and there is a reason I was all of those different things. It was because different setups worked for me at different points in my life due to different needs.

I find that when I talk to folks in other practice groups, I also find that different things work depending on your personal circumstance, but also your practice group. I do a lot of litigation, so for me, even when I was 75 percent time, I was never, you know, off every Friday because that, for me, didn't work in litigation. You didn't know what the needs were going to be, so there could be a month where I was in the office every day. And then the next month, maybe I worked, you know, a Monday, Tuesday, and then Wednesday, Thursday, Friday my kid's school was closed, and I spent the time with them, and so for me I found flexibility to be key, but I do agree with you, I think being open-minded about it and educating yourself on the different options available at your firm. I think for firms to be open-minded and realizing that, you know, maybe there needs to be some flexibility on the different options available for people, I think is important.

ROBINSON: I agree with both of what you are saying, and I think that when I made the transition from public to private law, the decision was based solely on my change in circumstance. I went from a single parent of a toddler to married  with three kids, to be able to do private practice. So it definitely is circumstantial, and I was able to make the transition, but what I looked for was a firm that was not only talking about work-life balance, but actually implementing work-life balance. Like I can do work at home if I need to, and there is no stigma attached to that, or there is no issue if I need to do that. So it is very important, even with the previous topic, mentorship, to having actual policies, and actually applying the policy. I find when you are in an environment, and there is a policy,but it is not being followed, it makes life and work frustrating and difficult, so I agree with both of your points.

The Women in Law Roundtable Discussion, held in The Legal Intelligencer's office in Philadelphia on July 25, 2018. Pictured: Mary Beth H. Gray, with Kleinbard. (Photo by Joe Warner)

MARY BETH GRAY: I see a big difference between short-term and long-term planning. I don't know what it is that gets people to stay practicing law because we all graduated from law school in classes that were 50 percent women. I had my 25th law school reunion a couple of weeks ago, and there were like 3 percent of the women in my class are still practicing. And I think I am exaggerating, but it is not 40. It is noticeable. You know, admittedly there are men who aren't practicing, too. I almost want to see sort of a longitudinal study about what made them decide that even if the flexibility is available, I can't find just the right mix of work that I thought I wanted to do and loved at one point, and this, which has now just become so overwhelming that I can't do it anymore. I think one thing firms can sort of do is listen to what the short-term stress is. You know, is it flexibility? Is it, I have a child with special needs and I have to be there a certain number of hours a day? Is it, you know, my significant other is, you know, working at something that requires a lot of travel time? Is it, my parents are ill? Is it, you know, I just don't like this client that much, so this is the thing that is  going to push me to decide that I want to do something else?

I think firms have to listen more about, you know, kind of the—the trajectory isn't like this, it is like this, (indicating.)  And, you know, when you are talking to somebody who is a high potential associate, who is in one of those troughs, you know, what is it that you can get them to do that can get them out of that trough and keep them until they get to a point where you say to them, sort of I think the way we all could, it will get better, and you will get to a point to where your life is much more satisfied because you have clients you like, and you are more independent.

And you have enough seniority that you have the flexibility that there is not going to be a penalty or a consequence to you saying I can't be here that day, but at the same time sort of recognizing these are sort of high demand jobs, and at times, you know, whether you do litigation or transactional work, there are going to be times where you can't go home. This is not going to be the night that you can go home early. But don't worry, it is going to get better, and we are going to get you out of this short-term period, whatever it is, and get you to a point where it is better for you and help people understand those, you know, those ups and downs about it.

ESPOSITO: I think that's where the organic mentoring comes into play.

GRAY: I agree.

ESPOSITO: I think even the question how to do the short-term planning, how to do the long-term planning, and I think you never know as an associate if you are going to click with your assigned mentor or not. I think it is important to have those organic mentors that associates can go to and say I am trying to figure out, I am in this trough, you know, is there an end in sight, and, you know, how did you navigate it, why did you stick with it. I mean even in terms of figuring out what works for you in terms of work-life balance, I think to have those organic mentors to talk to. I mean whether people have kids or not, you know, it is not kid-work balance. It is life-work balance. Everybody has a parent, a sibling, something that they need to juggle. I have a new puppy now. I mean, you know, you have all these different things to juggle, and I think it is important for associates to have an organic mentor to talk to, and one piece of advice I give a lot of first and second year associates is to the extent their firm allows it, and our firm does, I always recommend work with as many partners as you can because I think part of the problem is when associates are only working with one or two partners, and if they don't happen to click or connect with one of those two partners, the next thing you know, they're a mid-level associate. They don't have an organic mentor that they can go to to talk to about these issues. I think that's some of the exit ramp that you see.

GRAY: The thing I am still stunned by, actually both in my husband's office and in my office, is the relatively few number of people, families that you see in offices where both, you know, spouses, partners work, and there is somebody else they're taking care of.  You know, I think one of the challenges I always see is trying to explain to the people I will take over from at my firm, they all had somebody who was at their house full-time. It is just getting somebody to understand, like it doesn't necessarily have to be me, but it has to be somebody. I spent all day yesterday at the vet. Like why did we get a dog? You know, but somebody has got to be there. It has to be me or somebody else.

I think it is a blind spot in people, like what do you mean you can't be in the office today. If our firms aren't providing enough models, like literal models of what that looks like for somebody not to have to be in the office all the time, then we have to look outside of our firms to see what the other best practices are for helping people deal with the fact that you can't always be sitting at your desk.

MILLER: I think technology is changing everything. Everybody is moving into the paperless realm, and it is making it easier to practice from home. It is like a whole new ball game now. We were traditionally a firm where you had to be in the office, and now we are moving out of that direction and letting people work from home.

GRAY: And really letting them.

MILLER: Really letting them. They don't need to be in the office as long as you can manage your staff and take care of what you have to. It is actually more efficient for us, sometimes for people to work from home if they are traveling to the different counties, if they can go back to wherever they live instead of coming back downtown.

The Women in Law Roundtable Discussion, held in The Legal Intelligencer's office in Philadelphia on July 25, 2018. Pictured: Sharon Caffrey, with Duane Morris. (Photo by Joe Warner)

CAFFREY: The one problem I see in the whole working from home, having flexibility is the first four years of practice, the learning curve is so high, and you actually need to be able to talk to people and engage them on a regular basis. So for young associates, I tell them if you need to go to the doctor, you need to be home, you need to travel to visit sick family, do it, but understand that you also need to be in the office, engaging and learning from the other people around you because you don't understand where in the rule book you are going to find whatever you need, or what other sources there are. And, yes, you can call people, but there is a lag. You know, it is a call. It is a message. It is phone tag. It is emails that might not get responded to immediately because somebody is in a meeting. So I always encourage the young lawyers to ride out that first four years when the learning curve is so high, and it is taking you longer to do things before they really build in the work-life flexibility to their life. I still, I always say I am full-time, flextime because at each stage of my life it has been something different. Right now it is looking at colleges with my daughter. I spent two or three days, probably like five days in July out of the office taking her to different colleges and interviews, and my husband and I have been juggling. That's a different stage than taking care of an infant or a puppy or an elderly person, but it is still a stage that you have to deal with. You can't not deal with it. Most of the colleges don't accommodate Saturday visits in the summer. So at each stage of your life you are doing that. But it would be really hard to do this for over a course of a month if I were a fourth-year associate trying to get a brief done. It is something different. I am editing stuff. I can do that at night in a hotel room.

ROSENBERGER: I actually see a connection between our first topic and our second topic. For me, work-life balance issues are aided by the organic mentorship where the senior person works as a team with the junior folks, and does—I mean some of what all of you have been saying, find opportunities for that person to not just be the person who does all the work, but then I show up, and I am the one for show time, but have that person handle the deposition or the arbitration or whatever it may be, so that you are working together so that when, if I had kids and I needed to go to colleges, that's one area I am happy I don't have to do, but whatever the work-life balance issue is, I have someone who my clients are comfortable going to when I am not available for whatever reason.

I mean one thing I love about our office, and this is not—this is just the culture of the firm, is that when someone has something serious, a spouse is ill, a parent is declining, or whatever the issue may be, we pull for each other. You know, if someone needs the time, you know, someone will say to them tell me what is on your plate, we will get it assigned. And that gets built through the organic mentorship relationships and an overall culture.  We are a small enough practice group within the firm where we can all be a team in the labor employment department, and in the bigger firms, I am sure it is not going to be the whole firm doing that, but within a practice group or what have you.

ESPOSITO: I think the team point, I completely agree. I think, you know, at DLA, I work with a really nice, great team that has organically developed with some other partners and associates at all different levels, and I think it does help enable that—it not only creates the organic mentoring I think when you all work as a team, but it also helps you navigate the work-life balance. Because if I, you know, need to be out because, you know, I am actually in town, so I would like to take my 8-year-old to her doctor's appointment, there is someone else on the team who can cover something that day.

ROSENBERGER: It benefits for us, too.

ESPOSITO: It works all the way around, and I think to some extent, too, kind of looping back in an associate's retention, I do think it helps associates to hear and see when partners are saying things, you know, I am going to be out on Thursday because I am taking my daughter to her doctor's appointment and the calendar looks pretty clear. Then I think it helps send a signal to those associates who may have kids or other work-life needs that, you know, she looked and saw that the calendar was clear, and there wasn't much going on,so it is OK if I do that, too. And I find, you know, I have seen I think a few associates, female associates leave the private sector sometimes pointing to I just couldn't have that work-life balance. I would say, what did you try to do that you couldn't do, and I find that times they don't feel like they can say well, I missed my daughter's birthday because they asked me to cover a deposition. Well, did you mention that it was. Well, no, I didn't feel that I could.

MILLER: I think that one of the keys is that young women associates, or even male associates, need to communicate. It is not just leadership communicating. A lot of times young women don't like to speak up or cause problems or ask questions, and I think that might keep women in the practice if they could, you know, come to the partner or whoever, even a senior associate, and say hey, these are some of the issues that I am dealing with right now. If they could just tell us what those issue are, then we might be willing to work with them if they are a really good associate, and we want to keep them. But they don't have the, for lack of a better word, courage to speak up and to let someone know what you are thinking, I think that is one of the issues of why women drop out of the profession because they don't know that there could be other options for them.

ROBINSON:  Well, sometimes I think it is not readily apparent, and maybe it needs to be readily apparent. To your point, if you don't ever see anybody else going on vacation or leaving the office for a birthday party, how am I going to do it? I came, again, from public service. The training we had was like a full day of team work, so that was the culture. No one worked alone. I didn't find that same thing, or I didn't think that that happened in firms, so I never really wanted to transfer until I found somewhere where I was like oh, wait, they do, firms do do this. It does happen. But it needs to be readily apparent. It needs to be something that is part of your culture that is seen, just like the smile on your face. So if you see it, then you know it, and then you implement it and do feel comfortable engaging in the same behavior to your point.

RYAN: There was a common theme. It came out of something Mary Beth said and Lori said as well, we are a profession of problem solvers. If we know what a problem is, we can fix it, but you have to know what the problem is. So part of it is speaking up and being aware and be willing to respond to changes.

And I think, I want to move to another topic, but this is a good one. I mean in terms of the tangible things that the profession can do to keep women in the profession at a critical time, and it is sort of one to 10. I think that's where you see some of the greatest departures. And ones that, to your point, if you knew what the problem was, you could fix it, and you could have a different outcome.  And not that all departures from law firms are bad. I mean some people really want to be in-house and excel, or they want to go into the judiciary, lots of different options, and lots of them are good. But for those that maybe could be avoided, or could be solved for, and I know, you know, women leaving immediately after return from leave, because that make sense, right, it is a very hard time. It is an overwhelming time. You come back, and on many cases, to an empty desk. You know, with your same billable hours expectation, and you have all these new things going on at home that you have never had before. One of the things we recently did was we did our ramp up hours policy. So if anybody comes back from a leave of eight weeks or more, your hours get reduced 40 percent the first month, 30 percent the second, 20 in the third, 10 in the fourth, just to give you time to ramp back up, but your compensation stays at 100 percent. Just to reflect the reality of you are not going to probably come back to a full desk and everything, hitting the pace just like that.

And the stress that that relieves is amazing. I think something like that is not difficult to implement, probably more appropriately reflects the reality of the situation. It doesn't have a comp consequence and will allow people to sort of take the moment they need to breathe and get back into the full swing of work. So I think there are more tangible things like that that we can do that will have a real positive impact for women and men. You know, it is gender neutral, but for people returning from any kind of leave, including maternity.

MAYES: We also did a panel with some of our lawyers who had been in-house and were back in private practice for our very youngest lawyers to talk about what life as an in-house counsel is like because I think human nature is to assume the grass is greener, and not that there aren't benefits to in-house counsel positions, but, you know, you have a dedicated calendar. I remember one woman talking about how she was calendared into meetings because you have one client, so they're able to just tell you you are going to be here, here and here over the next three days. She had no control over her calendar. And she talked about how leaving to go on a school trip with her daughter was actually harder from an in-house position than it is in a law firm where there are ways to work your calendar, get coverage.

So I think it doesn't mean that that is bad and law firm practice is good. But I think the more communication there is with our younger lawyers about the reality of all the different choices that are out there, then they are able to make I think more informed decisions instead of thinking that is nirvana, and this is impossible, and that we are all going to shift that way.  Because for some of them they find, depending on where they end up, it is not that different from what they have been doing.

GRAY: I know you want to move on, but I want to say something because I think that is a really  interesting policy. Because I think there is like a self-fulfilling prophecy effect of the lack of women in law firms. I think you start to wonder if the lack of women is because there is something just existentially ill-fitting about having women. Because you have all heard people say, you know what happens, women have babies, and they don't come back. I think that's part of the reason they don't come back. Because they come back, they are sad about being back maybe. It isn't about having children, because I agree with that, it is just whatever is happening in your life that has made you go away for a while, or it has made you say is this really all there is. Your hours decline. You know you are going to be judged for your hours declining. That makes an unhappy job life, even if you liked it before. And now you feel a little bit ostracized because you are not really busy, and that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I think we have to find ways to keep asking is it something circumstantial that is making it less easy for you to be productive, or is it really existential, is it really that you just discovered that you don't really like this. I bet you a more than majority of the time it is circumstantial, and there are things we can do to get people through that hump, whether it is putting them in front of clients they like, or fixing a scheduling problem, or fixing a compensation problem, or fixing a relationship problem within the firm, but I think, you know, people don't want to pry. They don't want to have a conversation, so we just assume well, it is just because blank, you fill in the blank on your own. Their hours decline. It stays that way. No one figures out how to get them reincorporated again, and then they are going to leave. Then it is an absolute certainty that they are going to go.

CAFFREY: Sometimes there is the belief that if their hours decline, it must be a quality thing. The message needs to get out it is not a quality thing.

MAYES: The other thing I think that happens is that just the way growth in a law firm occurs, that oftentimes right at the point women are having children, if they are going to do that, is the time the firm, in the hopes of helping them develop so that they are partner-ready, says let's talk about business development.

And, you know, they're back, and they are maybe managing one or two children, and they figured that out. They feel like they are technically astute, and they are literally just holding their heads above water, and then that topic starts to be a real part. I think for a lot of women they say there is a limit. There is just a limit. They are not willing to bet on themselves. They don't see maybe clearly the benefits of autonomy that come if they can just push through that, and also that nobody, because you are being spoken to about business development and encouraged, doesn't mean that people expect you to have numbers on the paper at the end of that year or the next year, but it is trying to give those younger lawyers tools.

But I think it is a little difficult. It is like waves when you are in the ocean, and you get used to jumping over the ones that are this high, and then they go up higher. And I think for some people it just feels like too much in the moment.

RYAN: You may not know, but that was the perfect segue into the next topic. That was very well done. The next part of the conversation, the second half hour, if we can talk about it, is the path for women to leadership. Because to your point, if you are an associate, and you look up, right, and you see somebody that has, you know, the kids, that is in your practice area and succeeding, not only succeeding, and not only a partner, but who is leading.

And we went around the introductions in this group. This is a knockout group of women in this room, and I promise you, I am quite certain that there are many women who look up to you and say  that's what I want to be when I grow up, or I am so glad they did it, or they're an inspiration to me. I have very little doubt that that's happening in this room. Can we talk about how to get more women involved in leadership of law firms? You have all done it. Tell me how have you done it.

ROBINSON: Advocating for other women, that's a huge part, in line with the mentorship and having multiple mentors. Just once you identify a younger attorney, and you see what they can do, and you identify that, when the conversation happens in the room, be an advocate for them. Previous life, had no issues with that. In this particular realm at my firm, we have a women's group, and there is a lot of that, how do we keep continually advocating for each other, assist each other. I think it is important to have that.

The Women in Law Roundtable Discussion, held in The Legal Intelligencer's office in Philadelphia on July 25, 2018. Pictured: Carolyn Mirabile, with Weber Gallagher. (Photo by Joe Warner)

MIRABILE: We have a women's group in our office, as well as a diversity group, and we have regular meetings, but we are inviting all the firm and engaging, and I will tell you it is very difficult to promote women in a law firm. It is not easy. You have to be very verbal. I know I have been to a lot of meetings, either practice group meetings or management meetings, and I'm the only female in the group. And if you are intimidated by that, you are not going to be able to have a voice. You have to be able to speak, too. You can't just go to the meetings, and there is a room full of men, and you just sit there silent. You have to be able to talk and promote other people. But I think it is engaging them. I think people are more successful if you reach out to somebody, and you engage them in either a management discussion, or making them part of, you know, feel a part, you know, how can we help the firm, how can we help you be better successful here. That really helps in making them feel like they have a stake in becoming a partner.

If anyone asks about it, I know in our firm, you can meet with a managing partner and say hey, what do I need to do to get on like a partnership path. You have got to communicate that because how is someone just working without goals or not understanding how they do become a partner. It is not just, you know, well 10 years, I'm going to be a partner. There might be five or six in addition to how many years you're there. Years might not have anything to do with it at your firm. I think you have to verbalize those goals and talk to the people about how do you become a partner at the firm.

KREISER: Just in terms of leadership, too, expressing your interests in firm committees. We have a number of firm committees where we want associate participation and representation, and it really gives them confidence to see that they are part of the decision-making process, and they see others on the committee who might be members of management. And it is a great opportunity, I think. It is like a training realm in a way to get their feet wet. And before everyone arrived, we were talking about the fact that we do a leadership training program for small groups. This is not just for women. It is for small groups of more senior associates where we see leadership potential. There is maybe 10 people in a group. We use an outside consultant. It really provides those associates the opportunity to get to know each other better and to dialogue and interact and hear about leadership training. They get one-on-one coaching if they are interested.

GRAY: The thing I like about that idea is that I think one of the things we have to be better at as an industry is recognizing different forms of the same outcome. You know, we all look very different from the people whose places we will take in a lot of ways. I think leadership also is something that takes a lot of different roles. There isn't one way to do it. There isn't one way to get there. I think we get a little tunnel-visioned in well, if this person was the prior leader, the next leader has to look and act just like that person. I think encouraging people who to your point are saying I don't know if I want to do it. I don't know if I am ready. I don't know if I have the skill set, and waiting until they've checked off all of what they've perceived as the right boxes to be in that leadership role. I mean sometimes I think it is just as simple as taking the person who is opinionated because a person who is opinionated will get things done probably more readily than somebody who says well, it could go either way as far as I am concerned. I don't really have a strong view of what the right way is for us to do something and how we can get there. So I think it is almost just telling everybody from the start you all have the potential to be a partner, and you all have the potential to be the managing partner, but you have to want it, and you have to keep working at it, and the firm has to recognize that you may not be looking at the right person. You may be missing something if you are not looking at everybody.

KREISER: To your point, the leadership training, I have sat in on it. It talks about how we all have different personality types. We have to use our own personalities in a way that makes us feel most comfortable. We don't have to be a certain kind of leader.

CAFFREY: At each firm there's a certain code that you have to crack. This room has cracked the code.

GRAY: Which makes us suspect probably.

CAFFREY: Maybe. For me, there is a way to do things at Duane Morris. And there is a way not to do things.

GRAY: The culture is very important.

CAFFREY: It is. It is huge. There is a way to work. We have a Quaker Foundation. We reach consensus. There aren't votes. That's our culture. It is very important to us. We hold onto it. And we try to improve upon it, but if an associate wants to go plowing in and take no prisoners, they are not going to be successful at our firm. That's not within our culture. Even partners who do that, have that personality, they are not going to be long-term successful at our firm because they are not going to be collaborative. Because we have a collaborative environment. That's not for everyone. But, you know, I have seen associates that commit career suicide by trying to take no prisoners, and having that personality and thinking that they can just do things the way they want to do them, and you really, you have to kind of be an observer and observe how things get done in your place. You can improve upon it. You can make suggestions and be opinionated and express your opinions, but there are ways to do it positively to get things done.

ROSENBERGER: I am hearing a lot from people who are, it sounds like, at mostly male-owned firms. My firm is actually a mostly female-owned firm, but I am here to tell you what you are saying here is true regardless of what the leadership is. You have to understand the culture of the firm. You have to understand, and I do think one thing we can do is, the more junior women who we are trying to bring along, is help them navigate what that culture is, what the  personalities are, you know, how do you get to—if this is your goal, whether it be the kind of law you want to practice, or the kind of work-life balance you want to have, or whatever it is in your career, figuring out where the levers of power are and how to navigate the culture of the leadership to get to that goal. Or whether it is just not going to work because what you want isn't the way things get done here. To be able to help  the person you are bringing along navigate that, help them understand that maybe you need to reevaluate what your goal is. Is there another way to get, you know, the end result of balance that you want that is not exactly what you are expressing as your goal or whatever. You know, I think that is true regardless who the leadership is.

RYAN: Something we haven't touched on yet in the same line is it is good for the firm, right? I mean one of the ways that making this culture more inclusive is to sort of highlight the benefits that having a more diverse room brings. And it undoubtedly does.

I think the case for diversity has been made. But by having more women in the room, by having more diverse lawyers in the room, the discussion is going to change, and it is going to be for the better. To the extent that people are running into walls or resistance, I do think that there is a business case frankly to be made for that and the good of the firm. Is anyone familiar with the Mansfield Rule? Are any of the law firms doing it?

ESPOSITO: Yes.

RYAN: The Mansfield Rule is modeled after the NFL Rooney Rule, and what it does, among other things, right, it requires law firms to consider at least 30 percent women, LGBT and minority lawyers for all the leadership roles. So it doesn't mean you have to have 30 percent filled by, but the consideration for the position. So it makes it part of your process. That in and of itself, I think they had 45 law firms sign on for one year, and it is going into year two and will be broader.

But that's another way in terms of talking about the nuts and bolts and how to make things happen. That's another thing that I think the industry has looked to as a way to push some of the discussions forward.

ROBINSON: I think if you continue with this is the way we have always done it, you won't grow. And to your point about diversity and the reverse mentorship that you mentioned earlier, different perspectives create opportunities, opportunities for development, change, growth in the firm. I have been able to provide my supervisor with different ways to look at cases just based on the people we are serving because I have a different perspective. If you don't have that in the room, then you are kind of doing the same thing over and over and getting the same result, and I believe that's the definition of insanity. So at some point you have to make the investment and the change to see the growth.

RYAN: Right. Well, this is not a subject to bring up with 10 minutes left, but I am going to do it anyway because that's where we are. We talked about success for women partners at firms. A lot of it will go back to how success is recognized, including compensation, and part and parcel, credit. And so, you know, you read a lot lately on both subjects, but again, I am interested in the discussion of how are you making sure that women attorneys who started as associate go all the way up are getting fair credit for the work that they are doing or generating, and then also that that carries through on the compensation front.

CAFFREY: I think it is how origination is viewed. Our particular model probably doesn't credit origination as much as it does work. So the nice thing about that is everybody wants to go on your pitch. Because if they are going to get the work, and get to do the work, that helps them. And if it is good work, and it is a high rate, and it is interesting, they are really going to want to go on your pitch, even if they are not getting credit because they get the credit for the work done and for the successful pitch. I think the more we model that way, the more we are going to include people who aren't just the person with the contacts at the CEO level.

KREISER: We don't use origination at all at our firm. It is not part of the equation when we evaluate performance, no origination.

The Women in Law Roundtable Discussion, held in The Legal Intelligencer's office in Philadelphia on July 25, 2018. Pictured: Lori Miller, with Goldberg Miller & Rubin.

MILLER: Our firm, women and men are treated completely the same. It is how valuable you are to the firm and what have you done for the firm. And you create your own path.

GRAY: And how is value measured generally?

MILLER: There is a lot of different,  you know, because there is all different levels of people in the firm, there is senior associates, junior associates. It is, you know, for example, senior associates, are you supervising anyone? How many cases are you handling? How many people are working under you? Have they stayed at the firm? Have you been able to retain those people? For junior associates, or new associates, how well did you pick up, you know, the learning curve? For people coming right out of law school, we have a certain way that we work in our firm. You start out at motion court, and you start on low-level things. How fast were we able to get you into the courtroom or to do depositions or arbitrations? What was your learning curve? When did you do your first arbitration? Have you gone out to see clients? You know, what have you done outside the firm? Everyone is judged in different ways, and everyone has different talents, and we try to look at it that way.

ESPOSITO: What about the partner, for firms that just said they don't look at origination at all?

KREISER: For us, it is IFR.  We call it individual fees received. So we look at how much money you are  bringing in the door.

ESPOSITO: On your work?

KREISER: On your work. Of course, we have a revenue hour commitment. We look at billing binder. We look at realization, you know, how profitable are you? Our compensation for members, there is eight buckets. There is no gradation in between, so you are either in Step 1 or you are at Step 8. In each bucket is one, you know, comp number, plus whatever the profit of the firm is.  So we don't create exceptions. We don't, well, she is sort of in between Step 5 and 6, so we are going to create a special, it is not that. So you have eight opportunities for compensation at the member level. Associate level, our first  three steps are lock steps. I'm sorry, four steps, and then Step 5 we have ranges of comp based on performance. That's how we do it.

CAFFREY: One of the  hardest things is if you don't—because this is where I always feel a challenge, is if you don't use credit origination, sometimes it is very hard to draw big rainmakers.

KREISER: We don't care about that. That goes to firm culture. That goes to our firm culture. If you don't fit the firm culture, we are not going to hire you, no matter how big your book might be. That's just how we do things. We are a 140 lawyer-law firm, so we are a smaller law firm, but that's how we look at it.

RYAN: Well, in reading, and if you haven't, I would recommend it to you, but the ABA published a task report last year on gender pay equity and things along those lines, and one of the recommendations that they put forth was that you have a critical mass of women on your comp committee. Again, I am curious, but I do think people will tell you that as you get more women in the room, as you get more diverse lawyers in the room, they talk about the discussion changing. Also, people looking for different things to make sure that there is parity and things along those lines. I am curious if firms are taking steps that you are seeing to make sure the composition of the comp committee is more representative of the firm, or representative of women in—

MAYES:  We certainly have. I have been at Cozen 11 years, and it is remarkable over the course of that 11 years, I am sure it mirrors the industry, but the sensitivity to increasing the number of women on all the key committees. I also think it is incumbent on senior women to realize they have the power to walk into their CEO or managing partner's office and say you need to add a woman or two onto this committee. We just have to be willing to do it. I remember the day that I realized that I had that power. I picked up the phone, and I made that call. I didn't do it in a meeting. I mean you have to be smart about how you do it, but I said, hey, have you thought about—I just didn't call and say put more women on the comp committee. I said have you thought about this particular person. She is amazing. She hits on all the cylinders. She brings so much. So do your homework and don't just lob this idea at senior management. I think try to be helpful in the process, but I really do think that we need to help ourselves and we need to help each other, and you had said early on, you need to be verbal. We can't just wait for this to happen. We have to find opportunities to do it in a way that helps move our organization forward. And I think, you know, that that will help bring success in this area to the firms.

The Women in Law Roundtable Discussion, held in The Legal Intelligencer's office in Philadelphia on July 25, 2018. Pictured: Alexis C. Handrich, with Pond Lehocky. (Photo by Joe Warner)

ALEXIS HANDRICH: And not just realizing that you have the voice, but I treat it like it is my personal responsibility to make sure those things are happening. If I have an opportunity to get, like in my co-chair with the bar association, if I have an opportunity to get women from my firm into other positions on the executive committee so that they can, you know, also work up through the ranks through that, not just that I should do it, or want to do, but I have to make sure it happens because I have the ability to make sure that it happens.

MAYES: I think you have to be the right woman, that's the other thing, or the right diverse candidate. I think we do ourselves a disservice if we just champion diversity. There is so many qualified diverse candidates and that really needs to be a part of the pitch.

HANDRICH: Yes, so they can be successful, so that they can be an example.

ROSENBERGER: To your point, we have talked about this a lot within our individual firms, but we also in the positions that we hold have opportunities externally to assist, not  just people from within our firm, but if we have a particular industry where there is a conference where we speak, or that we know happens that is not diverse, but we know the people who plan well enough to say, you know, what do you think about having so and so speak next time around.

Again, do your homework, and you know that this person did a lot of work  in X field. They would be great, it would be great to have  X  on the panel. I think we certainly can use that influence as well. That helps women—I mean helps the overall issue that you raised at the beginning, which is practicewide. It is not just individual firms. It is the whole field.

RYAN: On that very good  note, we have hit noon. Thank you all for adding very passionate, very intelligent voices to this discussion. I appreciate it.