Q & A: Lauren Stiller Rikleen

A business imperative

The Bowditch Institute for Women's Success aims to improve opportunities for the retention and advancement of women in the legal profession. Executive director, Lauren Stiller Rikleen, tells Women Legal about the work she is currently doing with law firms, as well as the drivers for success in gender diversity and some common stumbling blocks.

Can you tell us more about the work that you do with law firms in this area?
“One important aspect of my work is conducting internal assessments for law firms. This consists of having confidential discussions and meetings with a sample of lawyers (from different offices and at different levels) to understand the unique issues they face, and how law firm culture impacts women’s advancement.
In my book, Ending the Gauntlet: Removing Barriers to Women’s Success in the Law, I talk about institutional impediments to women succeeding. There are a variety of reasons why, since not all workplaces are the same. Issues can vary significantly among offices or within practice groups, and it’s important for firms to understand what is contributing to attrition and what is hindering women from becoming partners at their firm. How can you build a solution for women’s advancement if you don’t know what the problem is?”

What are other steps?
“I also conduct Navigator® Career Workshops, which are multi-session workshops designed to help women steer their career success, both internally within their workplace, and externally. These workshops are for groups of approximately a dozen women, and provide the participants with a confidential setting in which they can focus on their career-advancement challenges and opportunities. It is a structured environment, which is part lecture and part discussion.
I also speak at firm retreats, and conduct workshops on such topics as conducting a gender-equal evaluation process, women's leadership and generational differences in the workplace.”

Some say that that law firms are lagging behind when it comes to gender diversity. Do you think this is a fair opinion?
“Absolutely. I think this could partly be due to the fact that law firms, generally speaking, have been financially stable, so attrition and diversity has not been at the top of their list of concerns.
Now it’s becoming more of a significant issue as the client base – the source of work – demands much more by way of diversity. Law firms are starting to understand that their clients, as well as the law students that firms are recruiting, are more diverse. Clients are saying, ‘I want to see more diversity at your firm, at the leadership level and in your teams.’ I think that law firms are finally beginning to understand that this is a business imperative in today’s diverse work environment. To be truly successful, firms must provide full support, including management leadership and commitment, as well as the necessary resources to develop and implement a programme which, over time, will increase statistics regarding the retention and advancement of women.”

Who should be leading such initiatives?
“It varies quite a bit from firm to firm, however you need several things in place. Your leadership should be active participants at the table spearheading change.
Too many firms still have a ‘bottom up’ rather than ‘top down’ approach. To be successful, these efforts need a clear and unequivocal commitment from the highest levels of the firm, stating that the advancement of women is a business imperative that requires the full engagement and commitment of the entire firm.”

What are the most common mistakes you see?
“Measuring success is imperative. One important measurement needs to be whether you are retaining more women and promoting more women. Firms generally do not have a process in place to measure the work that they are doing. Also, most people do not understand how their own unexamined bias – some would call it unconscious bias – impacts how they review and evaluate others.
Another problem that I see is firms assigning implementation of a women’s initiative to people that don’t have the authority or leadership role within the firm to drive change.
Finally, there can be a lack of effective reduced-hours and flexible-work programmes. In a workforce in which most younger lawyers are or will likely be in families where both parents are working, firms need to do a better job of implementing firm-wide policies which, again, are fully supported by all levels of the firm management.”

Lauren Stiller Rikleen is executive director of the Bowditch Institute for Women’s Success, and a partner at Bowditch & Dewey LLP. For more information about the Institute visit, ww.bowditchinstitute.com, telephone +11 508-416-2411, or e-mail Lauren at lrikleen@bowditch.com.