Equality Commission report on Women's Obstacles to Leadership to be released May 2nd
In 2003, during a keynote speech given at the Women's Bar Association Annual Gala, the Honorable Nancy Gertner issued the following challenge:  “create a Commission that will not just count the numbers, and congratulate us but ask why women are leaving, and when, why there are fewer women litigators in federal court, and not just study but propose. Work on what we need to do now to make the workplace safe for mothers and fathers. . . .  Let the next twenty-five years be not only about choice, but finally, hopefully and at long, last -- about equality.”

 

The result of that challenge was the creation of the Equality Commission. With representatives of the Women’s Bar Association, the Massachusetts Bar Association, the Boston Bar Association and Judge Gertner, the Commission discussed scientifically quantifying the problem and suggesting solutions. The Commission turned to Mona Harrington of the MIT Workplace Center to assist in developing a meaningful survey, to distribute and collect the information, and to compile the results. The work by the MIT Workplace Center culminated in the report:  Women Lawyers and Obstacles to Leadership.

 

The report will be released at a press conference, to be held on May 2, 2007 at 4:00 p.m. in the Jury Room of the Moakley Federal Courthouse in Boston, followed by a reception. Read the full press release about the briefing. All are welcome to attend the press briefing. Please RSVP here by 2:30 May 2nd.

 

The report tracks the career paths of nearly 1,000 women and men in Massachusetts law firms. The report shows revealing and inadequate firm responses to family factors affecting women—far more than men—which has resulted in a large scale exodus of women from the practice of law. The report also follows these women down their new career paths to organizations and companies that are more family-friendly—disproving the conjecture that women are choosing to stay at home rather than continue working in the legal field. Read the full summary of the report.