Opinion: Building bridges

Lauren Stiller Rikleen reveals why now is the time for female lawyers of all generations to work together to build a workplace that offers multiple paths to career achievement.

In recent conversations with female partners, conducted during the course of consulting projects with law firms, the dialogue has focused on the significant gulf that so often exists between successful senior female lawyers and the female associates in their firms. In one discussion, a partner was surprised that her assistance had not been sought when a female associate was faced with a difficult issue that warranted firm intervention. In another, a female equity partner expressed annoyance that an associate, after returning from maternity leave, had not sought her advice about how to jump back on the partnership track.
Both of these women were highly successful lawyers who did not understand that younger women in their firms considered them unapproachable. Neither saw the walls they had built around themselves resulting from years of forging along their solitary path to success.
The fact is, many of the successful senior female lawyers in the profession today succeeded through the single-minded dedication that was necessary to advance into a partnership with few, if any, other women. They persevered in the face of numerous obstacles, often sacrificing a great deal in the pursuit of their professional goals.
But as these pioneers look back at their careers, is it enough that they opened the door if it is only wide enough to let through those few who are in their own image? Would it not be an even greater achievement if they helped make it easier for the many talented women currently in the clogged pipeline?
Younger female lawyers today speak about their need for role models and mentors, and they are particularly hungry for guidance from their older and more successful female colleagues. Yet they frequently feel disappointment at a perceived lack of support, particularly with respect to addressing issues relating to work or family challenges. Where they seek a helping hand, they sometimes are met with a chilly silence.
It is time, however, to end the freeze. More than ever before, the engagement of senior women is needed if we are ever to see full equality in our profession. The statistics remain grim, as the percentage of female equity partners is unacceptably small, their place in the compensation system is often mired in the lower tiers and their inclusion in management and compensation committees is limited to an isolated few.
Success in isolation is not a sufficient legacy for female partners who can use their voice to make a difference.
It is not enough to say, ‘I had to do it this way and so should you’. It is time for those women at the top to say: ‘My way was difficult and lonely, and I want to leave behind a better workplace’.
We know from history that when women work together, their impact can be profound. We only have to look back to the status of women less than four decades ago to see how significantly the world has changed. These were the days before discrimination in the workplace or educational establishment on the grounds of a person’s sex became illegal, before legal abortions eliminated dangerous back-alley procedures, before contraceptives were freely obtainable and before women could retain their birth names after marriage or purchase insurance or credit in their own names.
Change happened, however, because forward-thinking women began working together, creating coalitions in legislatures, organising in communities and in myriad other ways uniting towards their common goal of achieving equality. We need that same sense of dedication and purpose today in the legal profession.
But it can only happen if the generations reach out to one another. Senior female lawyers can no longer view their success in a vacuum and still call it success. They must help create a workplace that offers multiple paths to career achievement, and allows smart and talented lawyers to get ahead without the same degree of intense personal sacrifices that earlier generations of women had little choice but to make.
My advice to a young lawyer reading this article is to leave a copy on the chair of a female partner you would like to get to know. And if you are the partner that finds this one morning, look around, lend a hand, and find a level of career satisfaction that may feel even better than many of the remarkable accomplishments you have already achieved.

Lauren Stiller Rikleen is the executive director of the Bowditch Institute for Women’s Success, a partner at Bowditch & Dewey, LLP, and the author of Ending the Gauntlet: Removing Barriers to Women’s Success in the Law. She can be contacted at lrikleen@bowditch.com