Letters to the Editor

GENDER WARS
Malaika Costello-Dougherty's cover article ["We're Outta Here," February] really hit a nerve. I fulfilled my lifelong dream of becoming a lawyer by going to law school at night while working full time and raising two children as a single mother. From my first day of law school I felt like a fish in water; I loved the law and eagerly anticipated going into practice. My two daughters and I sacrificed a great deal during those years, but I figured that I was serving as a good role model, teaching them to work hard to achieve their dreams.
      My first job was at a large, old L.A. firm. I didn't have the luxury of questioning the fact that there was only one female partner, who was at the Orange County office, making it difficult for her to act as a mentor to me. (In fact, I never actually met her.) I needed a job so I could support my family and repay my staggering student-loan debt. Besides, the partners repeatedly assured me that they "honor family values" (a quote from their website).
      In my first two years of practice, I remarried and became pregnant with my third child. Additionally, both of my parents were diagnosed with terminal illnesses. I noticed that the men at the firm with young children all delegated primary caretaking of their kids to their stay-at-home spouses or hired help. They considered themselves candidates for father of the year if they attended a Saturday soccer game. The men all played golf together on Fridays while the female associates covered their court appearances. I worked ten to twelve hours a day trying to keep up with the workload; in fact, I worked until 9 p.m. the day before I gave birth. As a new associate, I could not afford a nanny or a housekeeper or expensive dinners out. On top of that, as my parents' conditions worsened, I spent more and more time caring for them. Not only was I mentally and physically exhausted, I became increasingly angry and bitter.
      Today, I am a full-time stay-at-home mom. I volunteer a great deal of my time at my youngest daughter's school. Thoughts of returning to practice fill me with anxiety and dread. Nonetheless, as I pay that (still staggering) student-loan bill every month, I can't help but wonder if there is a way to reclaim my dream and my love of the law without surrendering my soul.
      To my three daughters and all of the other young women entering the workforce, I would say that it is still a man's world. If you are even thinking about fulfilling an urge to reproduce, lawyering may not be your best career choice. Until men begin assuming responsibility as equal caregivers, they simply cannot understand what it is like to have to choose between your career and your child. Moreover, since nature dictates that women are the ones who carry their children for nine months of pregnancy, give birth, and nurse them, true equality cannot exist until firms recognize these simple facts of life and make the necessary accommodations to actually honor family values.
      Sharon L. Tate
      Sylmar
     
      I read your article on women leaving the practice with great interest. My wife left a large firm, and many women friends have done the same. Most were predictably uninterested in a "part-time" relationship that was really full time by any normal definition. Most felt slighted and looked down upon as less-productive members of their firms.
      Quite frankly, large firms simply don't understand that you can offer true part-time arrangements for women, even in the litigation setting. Our firm, for example, currently has three working part time who are primary child-care providers. These wonderful lawyers maintain their desire for a professional career and offer us high-quality lawyers devoted to maintaining our firm's clientele. It is shortsighted, indeed, to believe that a firm is better off discouraging such lawyers and replacing them with full-time, but unknown and untested, lawyers.
      Wise litigators know that with some exceptions (especially in the rare case that actually goes to trial), one can arrange a schedule. Depositions, meetings, and conference calls can ordinarily be scheduled on certain days of the week. Not everything has to be done last minute. With an understanding (on everybody's part) that nothing's perfect, large firms should set the example for promotion of women in the field, especially as many of them reach difficult career decisions about practice and motherhood.
      Jonathan Allan Klein
      San Francisco
     
      I appreciated your article on why women are leaving the law. I am a Gen X attorney who also left a midsize firm for family/life reasons. Your article covers the issue well, and the topic is long overdue for discussion.
      It would also be smart to discuss a related issue: Baby boomer women did not defeat sexism in the profession. I've seen many instances where firms deliberately ignored the fact that male associates were regularly trotting off to pick up children or attend T-ball games, while having formal discussions with female partners and associates about the "other demands" in their lives.
      Combine this double standard with the other obstacles you mentioned, and it is no wonder why our generation looks for other options. If firms continue to ignore these issues, we can find other places to use our skills and prove our value.
      Rebecca Ball
      Issaquah, Washington
     
      Don't tell me. Let me guess. The reason women are leaving law firms is not due to a lack of energy or ability or initiative on their parts, right? It's only due to something that a lot of really bad men have done to them, right?
      I haven't read Costello-Dougherty's article, but I don't have to read it to "learn" all this. I've read enough articles on "women in (whatever the topic is)" to know that all women are strong and good, and all men are weak and bad. But these "weak men" are still somehow strong enough to impose their will on women, which is why women don't succeed.
      The babes who write these articles inevitably start with the conclusion and work backwards when researching the articles they intend to write. This is another example, right?
      Mark Sandstrom
      Fresno
     
      I was pleased to see that you featured one person saying that part of the attrition problem is the extreme hours requirement. Burnout occurs in both men and women. What learning is taking place? What creativity is being developed? No amount of mentoring can get around that burden.
      As for diversity, firms can hire people for the initiative, but if the powers that be aren't active, and white males don't participate, it will quickly be seen as window dressing and will not pay off in decreasing attrition.
      Barbara J. Luther
      Scottsdale, Arizona
     
      Your cover article on why women are leaving law firms is a disservice to women at big firms who are or aspire to be moms. You do not reference even one attorney who is balancing motherhood and big-firm life, yet there are scores of them doing it every day (without having the children "raised by nannies," as you warn). There are many advantages to practicing at a big firm and not on your own, or at a small firm, for this endeavor: established part-time programs; firm-provided BlackBerries and laptops; paid vacation and sick time; numerous other associates who can help you out when you're in a bind; top-rate calendaring programs; excellent support staff?including proofreaders, librarians, IT people, and secretaries; regular pay; some control over your schedule; etc.
      Of course, it is not easy, but I don't think there is much about being either a parent or an attorney that is.
      M. Freedenthal
      Los Angeles
     
      Disaffected lawyers, unite. Before you consider quitting a job that you could love, if only it did not include a 60-plus-hours-a-week commitment, draw up the business case for alternative work arrangements. These arrangements could include flexible work hours, part-time employment, time off with the right to return after an agreed-upon period, or any combination that works. If you can pass the bar, defend clients, and negotiate contracts, then you can face a skeptical executive committee by arming yourself with the facts about flexible work arrangements.
      It is likely that the executive committee will worry about the costs of flexible work schedules. The good news is that it is not difficult to show a positive return on investment when employers retain valuable employees. When the costs are calculated for recruiting a replacement lawyer, helping him or her learn the culture of a practice, disrupting relationships with clients when a lawyer leaves a firm, risking the loss of clients, and letting work go undone in the period after the lawyer quits and before the new lawyer is up to speed, the actual cost is much higher than most firms have probably contemplated. In addition, a law firm that cares about its lawyers enough to work out a schedule that is feasible for someone with family responsibilities is one that engenders a highly committed workforce?an asset that is significant, though difficult to quantify.
      In fact, there are no real barriers to accommodating the needs of lawyers who want and need flexible schedules, except for the parochial belief that "it won't work here." There are numerous successful models that keep lawyers working. All that is needed is the will to change workplace policies in ways that capitalize on the strengths in the new work environment.
      Diane F. Halpern
      Director, Berger Institute for Work, Family, and Children
      Claremont McKenna College
     
      Let me see if I get this straight: Women attorneys do not like the long hours, incessant emails, unsympathetic partners, and the lack of mentoring that mark the practice of law? Welcome to the working world, sisters. We male attorneys have been trying to cope with these issues for generations. You haven't been missing much.
      Mike Garcia
      Los Angeles
     
      I often wonder why labor laws, such as overtime laws, etc., do not apply to professionals. A quick cure to the entire problem would be to include all hired professionals in overtime-pay laws. Only partners would be exempt. But this seems unworkable even as I suggest it, because there will always be associates like myself who would be willing to burn the midnight oil to prevail at trial.
      I was born in 1957, worked four years for a firm, had a special-needs child for whom I decided I should drop back to part-time work, then was laid off. Now that my child is in high school and stabilized, I'm back at another firm working long hours.
      If the bean counters considered the hours attorneys work, on an hourly basis, I do not think attorneys are making that much more than clerical staff who work no more than a 40-hour week. I also don't see how change can be implemented by the women associates, as the article suggests, without an entire restructuring of the laws.
      Besides, men also experience these same pitfalls. One man I know had to leave a firm and set up his own practice out of his home when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, because he had two very young boys who needed a parent at home.
      In short, none of these issues are solely women's issues.
      Aimee Morris
      San Diego
     
      As a 50-year-old male repeatedly vilified during his personal and professional life about his "sexist perspective," I couldn't help but chuckle at the cover article. And I wonder if the young female associates quoted in the article realize just how sexist their perspective is, from a man's point of view.
      The persistent complaint from the women was a lack of "work/life balance." Well, I challenge everyone to read the article and substitute the phrase "young female associate" with "young male associate," and the phrase "work/life balance" with "fun time with the family."
      As Michael Douglas told us in the movie The American President: "America ain't easy. You gotta want it bad!" We're running a business here. You want to have more leisure time? Make your choice and live with it.
      Everyone?men and women alike?wants more downtime. But that has nothing to do with gender, bias, or corporate cultures. Nobody will?and more importantly nobody should?have to change the way they do business to accommodate that desire.
      Michael J. Smith
      Ventura
     
      Recently, my wife attended a talk given by the (female) president of a well-known college. The speaker told of having been asked by the college's outside law firm to discuss with the firm's lawyers issues facing women lawyers. When the attendees turned out to include no males, she asked the firm's (male) representative why no men had shown up for the discussion. The gist of the reply was, "Well, we thought the meeting was just to have women give each other pointers," whereupon the college president decided she didn't want a firm with that attitude representing them anymore. She replaced the firm.
      Anthony W. Hawthorne
      Berkeley
     
      I was reading your February cover story with great interest until an error upset me. I have studied young women's approach to choice in this country and how it is taken for granted by many women in Gen X and Gen Y. They do not see the need to fight to protect it, as it has always been there. The parallel is present in your article, wherein young women leave the big firms rather than fighting for change to protect their options.
      Then I saw the Generation Generalization chart and was appalled. How can California Lawyer print that baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, grew up with Roe v. Wade? Roe was decided in 1973! Many of us fought for change, like Roe and Griswold, and acceptance into the legal field, and we still do. Please get your facts straight, especially the legal ones.
      Susan B. Luce
      San Jose
     
      EDITOR'S NOTE: The chart was intended not as a strict historical timeline but as a brief reference to issues of influence in the formative years of the generations in question. Roe v. Wade, like Watergate, did indeed influence the tail end of the baby boom generation, and nearly all boomer women in their reproductive years.
     
      Your article about women leaving law firms raises important and troubling issues for our profession. Now you need to write one about lawyers of color. Sadly, lawyers of color, especially Latinos and African Americans at large firms, have fared even worse than women.
      Arturo J. González
      San Francisco
     
      WASHINGTON TOPS CALIFORNIA
      I am a recent applicant to the Washington State Bar Association's Rule 6 Law Clerk Program, and I wanted readers of "Who Needs Law School?" [ESQ., February] to know that not all law clerk programs suffer from the same low bar exam pass rates as California.
      Since 1984, according to an article titled "No JD Required" in the August 2005 Puget Sound Business Journal, 110 people have completed the law clerk program in Washington state, 94 of whom passed the bar exam. That's an 85 percent pass rate. Not too shabby.
      In Washington's Law Clerk Program, the professor-to-student ratio is somewhere between 4 and 5 professors per student. I can ask all the questions I want, I'll be in class at least eight hours every weekday, and my exams are the same as those taken by students at one of the best law schools in the country. I don't know of any institution of higher learning that can match that and only ask for tuition of $1,500 per year.
      Genevieve Cushman
      Olympia, Washington
     
      SEPARATE BUT EQUAL?
      I would like to respond to Sandra Rosenzweig's column in the February issue ["Rosie's Ramblings"], where she states that LexisNexis and Westlaw are "indistinguishable" except for "a few functions, buried deep in each database ...." As a law librarian who works for a private law firm (and does not have a monetary interest in either product, and has extensive experience using both), I can assure you that this is simply not true.
      Both products can tell you if a case or statute is good law, Westlaw using its KeyCite product and LexisNexis using the online adaptation of the very familiar Shepards, which it purchased in 1998. Both have access to the same pool of publicly available information, such as files from the California secretary of state. Both lease content from unaffiliated publishers, such as the Associated Press.
      However, each owns the exclusive right to carry its own treatises and proprietary editorial content. That's why you won't find any content from Witkin Summary of California Law on LexisNexis or from California Forms of Pleading & Practice on Westlaw. Even more obvious are the case headnotes. Westlaw owns the exclusive right to the "keys"?its system of classification of the laws, and the attendant headnotes, which were developed by Westlaw attorney editors and continue to be written by them today. LexisNexis has developed its own headnote system, without "keys," written by LexisNexis attorney editors. While they are both quality services, they are different vendors, with different content. If anything, over the past five years that I have been tracking and using them, they have become more different and exclusive, not less.
      Sara A. Fox
      San Francisco
     
      SANDRA ROSENZWEIG RESPONDS: True, each product has its own exclusive content (i.e., copyrighted, patented, and protected up the wazoo), but you don't get different results if you use one or the other. And that's my point?they do things differently, but neither is inferior to the other. Ultimately, you get the same results.
     
      LETTERS ON LETTERS
      Stephany Yablow asks in her letter that "[s]omeone please come up with a better name" for "special appearance." I agree that the phrase "specially appearing on behalf of ..." issues from counsel table far too commonly in our trial courts. It has a place, where a party objects to the court's jurisdiction under Code of Civil Procedure section 418.10, or applies for ex parte or provisional relief under Code of Civil Procedure section 418.11, and is therefore not making a general appearance which would waive jurisdictional defects. The phrase does not apply to an appearance on behalf of counsel of record. An attorney who appears on behalf of counsel of record undertakes all of the duties to the court and to the client that the attorney of record has undertaken. Thus, I believe it would be unethical to state one is appearing on behalf of an opposing counsel who cannot make it to court. In such a case, an attorney might say that she or he has been authorized by opposing counsel to enter into a stipulation, or to convey information. The only other context for the phrase is the attorney who is confessing to being unprepared-in which case the appearance may become "special" in a very different sense.
      Russell P. Nowell
      Brea
     

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