Stop Fixing Women - Make Law Firms Gender Bi-lingual - Building Gender Balanced Business

Many top law firms have introduced initiatives intended to help women work their way into leadership positions. However, these programs are mostly serving as a band-aid solution to a systemic problem; it is not the women that need to be fixed, but rather the firms and their male-dominated hierarchy.

The average gender balance among partners in the world’s top law firms is 85-15 male to female

Yet, women have for some time made up the majority of law school graduates

Many women who have given up on being made partner have joined corporate legal departments and are now clients – and they might not appreciate working with all-male teams of lawyers

The law firm partnership model is based on a pyramid structure in which lawyers slave away in service of a senior partner, hoping to eventually make partner themselves

The current thinking in these firms is that women aren’t making partner because they lack something (e.g. time, competence, style)

This thought process leads to a “fix the women” strategy that includes creating women’s networks, mentoring, and leadership programs

These programs are popular with women, but don’t seem to be resulting in a marked increase of women in leadership roles

Women are being encouraged to succeed by conforming to masculine norms and behaviors, with little acknowledgement that female talent might have its own culture