We have all read the myriad articles recounting the depressing statistics about the gender gap in the legal profession. We could lament that, despite the fact that more than half of incoming law school students are women, barely 15 percent of equity partners and just 26 percent of nonequity partners at the nation’s most prestigious law firms are women. We could sigh as we hear that nearly half of the women in the profession leave mid-career and do not return to the practice. Or, as Sheryl Sandberg suggests in her new book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead which was recently released to much fanfare and has caused quite a stir in executive suites and feminist circles we could "lean in" and figure out how to get women a seat at the table in leadership positions in the legal profession.
There is one key thing that young lawyers, who are not yet in the position to take a vote on equity partnership or groom women for leadership roles, can do. In the immortal words of KC and the Sunshine Band, we say to the women: Please don’t go. To the men: Support the women you know to make sure they don’t go. Make it part of your responsibility as a member of the profession to ensure that women are opting in and staying in because it simply makes for a better profession.
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