For her book “Women Lawyers” (Knopf), Mona Harrington interviewed more than 100 female attorneys, many of them graduates of Harvard Law School, to learn about the special challenges they face.
Q: What kinds of problems do women lawyers encounter?
A: The major one is they don’t hold positions of authority in the profession-those at the top levels of the big law firms, law faculties, legislatures, courts and prosecutors’ offices. They’re all still heavily dominated by men.
Q: What keeps them out?
A: A variety of things. It starts in law school with professors who teach a concept of law that allows only a single perspective, which is called objectivity. Law students are taught to rely on logic and divorce their thinking from all personal experience, which is considered subjective. Women are at a disadvantage because the kinds of logical connections that students are taught to make are among principles developed over the centuries by men to reflect the experiences of men. It’s a subtle marginalization that carries over into the profession and leads them onto professionally marginal tracks, not positions of power.
Q: What are some of the responses to this kind of discrimination?
A: A lot of women lawyers just leave law entirely. Many seek out areas that are compatible with their values and priorities, such as in-house counsel in a corporation, government work, public-interest law. Some work part time. They may find satisfaction in a lot of the options, but the legal profession considers them sidetracks.
Q: And what did the women who stay in the high-powered law firms tell you?
A: They said they were tired. Many of them are angry. While they may love their work, they feel a great deal of pressure trying to handle their careers and their families, and they’re resentful.
Q: With more than half the students in law school female, do you think some of the discrimination will end?
A: It’s not changing automatically. More women are in the profession, but there’s been a restructuring of law firms into two tiers. The power tier is still occupied by men.
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