Arabella Mansfield became the first woman to practice law in the United States after passing the Iowa bar in 1869. Here in Pennsylvania, Carrie Burnham Kilgore became the first woman admitted to practice in the state in 1886 (after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1883 and fighting for her admittance for the next three years). It is 2014, and while it is undisputedly true that women in law today are better off than at any other time in history, full acceptance still manages to elude women in the profession. This fact is supported by the dismal statistics: Last year, women lawyers made up less than one-third of the attorney population at Pennsylvania’s 100 largest law firms.
Inclusivity requires a true intention to include people who might otherwise be excluded or marginalized. Although law firms have been touting their grandiose efforts to increase diversity and the retention of female attorneys, it is often the everyday, seemingly commonplace events, comments and attitudes within firms that have the largest negative impact on lasting change.
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