The Old Girls Club: Maximizing Women’s Initiative Effectiveness

A very practical and informative panel titled "The Old Girls' Club" at Ms. JD's Third Annual Conference: Avenues to Advancement, tackled the topic of women's initiatives.  The knowledgeable and experienced panelist shared their advice on how to start one, how to maintain one and how to make the most of such a group. Here is some of their advice:

1. Set practical and realistic goals for the group.  The panelists all agreed that advancement and retention are two great overall goals for a women's initiative but also expressed a need for the group to stay relevant and to change with the changing needs of the firm/office as keys to a successful group. 

2. Get management on board. The panelists shared advice on the importance of having the law firm management on board and supporting the group.  They all agreed that having a plan for the iniative and being able to express how the group fits into and enhances the organization's strategic plan is a key to success.  While the panelists did not relate trouble with management support in their experiences, they did discuss the difficulties of getting measurable results from a group.  One group had experimented with tracking business referrals. However, most pitched the business case for diversity, in general, and also the positive recruiting impact of having a visible women's affinity group.

Networking & Effective Self-Promotion

Editor's Note: Ms. JD's annual conference, Avenues to Advancement, was held November 20-21 in Chicago. These are notes from the "Networking & Effective Self-Promotion" panel.  

DRI Women's Seminar

[Ed. Note: This post contains event information from one of Ms. JD's readers.  For more information about the DRI's 2010 Sharing Success: A Seminar for Women Lawyers, click the link below.]  I am promoting the Defense Research Institute's annual Women's Seminar.  I have attached the Save the Date and it will be held March 25-26, 2010 in Scottsdale, AZ.  Attendees will learn: how to deal with the impossible witness; business development tips specifically for female lawyers; juror perceptions of women litigators; tips for how to lead a trial team as a female lawyer; a humorous look at every day ethical issues faced by lawyers; dealing with generational differences with the practice of law; navigating the e-marketing maze to effectively use Facebook, Twitter, and Linked-In. A preliminary website has been established at http://www.dri.org/(S(bx2jvz55snaqwiznco23ijvv))/open/SeminarDetail.aspx?eventCode=20100208.  Judging from the success last year's event enjoyed, this year's seminar promises to be a hit!  You do not want to miss out!!

Networking Advice for Law Students Part V: The Harder You Work, The Luckier You'll Be

In the first four installments of this series I recommended you:

• Network with people you genuinely enjoy and in activities you find interesting.
• Take advantage of existing networks around you: in your legal market, from your alumnae associations, through affinity groups, and in your bar association's work.
• Don't waste opportunities to make new connections: follow-up for real, by email, by phone, on business cards, and after social and professional events.
• Earn your network's support by being a resource to those within it. 

Not surprisingly, this all takes a lot of work and attention. But it does pay dividends. And it gets easier, just like anything, with practice.

In my household growing up there was an expression I liked: a person makes her own luck. Recently I heard an attorney offer a similar sentiment: the harder you work, the luckier you'll be. This is true in so many aspects of the profession, but it's certainly the key to a successful professional network. 

Do yourself a favor and set aside a regular period of time each day, week, or month to check in on your networks and work on maintaining and developing connections. It doesn't have to take time away from other work. Have following-up on business cards from a reception earlier in the week be the thing you do in lieu of surfing the web in between focusing on an outline or paper.  Make a date with a potential mentor to have coffee near their office - but don't waste time going there and back and breaking up your day, just study at that cafe all afternoon. 

Alright ladies, that's it. Get out there and start schmoozing!

Networking Advice for Law Students Part IV: Pay It Forward (Be the Person Your Network Turns to for Help)

Women helping women. That's my motivation. It doesn't have to be yours (although if you haven't made a conscious decision to invest in women's success I challenge you to come up with a decent reason why not). If you're not feeling particularly altruistic, consider this: your network is only as valuable as your contacts think it is.

Don’t expect your professional network to pay dividends unless you are willing to earn it. This is basic golden rule stuff, you know “do unto others” and all that good stuff:

My network consists primarily of folks I contact through Ms. JD who help me with outreach to other students and professionals, who write guest posts for the blog, and who participate in Ms. JD events and programs. In return I provide all kinds of help: When NAWJ had an internship I not only posted it on Ms. JD, I got in touch with my contacts in D.C. and alerted student groups to the opportunity. When Catalyst issues a new report I ensure Ms. JD covers the release and analyzes the findings. When a 3L organizer at a local Ms. JD student group needs clerkship application advice I schedule a lunch and put her in contact with other contacts who are clerking for judges she’s considering.

Different connections will come to you with different requests. Be ready and willing to help out. Create an atmosphere of generous support and you can expect to encounter the same. You won’t regret it.

OK, that makes four:

1. Don't Waste Your Time Being Miserable - Network Through Something Interesting

2. Embrace the Professional Association Member Within

3. Follow-Up (Even on Business Cards) No Matter How Awkward

4. Pay It Forward (Be the Person Your Network Turns to for Help When You Can Give It)

 

Last, but not least, next week we conclude the series with:

5. The Harder You Work, The Luckier You'll Be

Networking Advice for Law Students Part I: Don't Waste Your Time Being Miserable - Network Through Something "Interesting"

I've already mentioned how important effective networking has been in my own career path. Now I'd like to share some of the tricks I've picked up along the way. First up: putting networking in a compelling context, or what I'm calling "Don't Waste Your Time Being Miserable - Network Through Something Interesting."

By this I mean networking in situations and with people you find interesting, entertaining, or otherwise worthwhile. I don't know about you, but I have to really bring my A game to make much of your basic wine and cheese event. I'm at my best when I have a built in topic of conversation in common with whomever it is I'm trying to shmooz. 

So I tend to avoid the straight mixer-style events. Instead I aim to attend the program-followed-by-reception model of networking opportunity. That way I and my conversation partner have just sat through the same lecture/panel/demonstration/video when we're swaying by the makeshift bar balancing cocktail napkin, cheese plate, and wine glass.

The point is: set yourself up for success. Go somewhere with something to talk about besides yourself. Give yourself an opportunity to connect with someone on a substantive level. 

After the jump: other ideas for ways to make meaningful connections and a preview of the rest of this series. 

A Code of Ethics for Female Attorneys

Recently, I heard Adrienne Suarez deliver her Code of Ethics for Female Attorneys. Favorite excepts include:

Number 4: Given the choice of being a mentor or a tormentor to a younger, less experienced female attorney, I actively choose to be a mentor.  

Number 7: I recognize that even though we may be of the same sex, I will not like every female attorney I meet.  I pledge, however, not to call her a “bitch,” or any other name powerful because of its misogynist origins.  

The Code represents a perspective probably not shared by everyone that there are inter-generational issues among female attorneys that prevent them from helping one another succeed.  Suarez takes a proactive, sometimes snarky, and thoroughly thoughtful approach to the problem. 

Suarez's explanation and the full list of pledges follow after the jump...

NAWL's Ready to On-Ramp program, for those of us who haven't even graduated yet.

I attended NAWL’s Ready to On-Ramp? program at Jenner & Block in
Chicago, which was “designed to help lawyers develop their own personal strategy to re-entering the workforce” after taking time off, usually for raising children. Not having graduated from law school yet (one more week!), I was the youngest person there. I got some puzzled looks.But I found that the women I met, who have entered, exited, and sometimes entered the legal workforce again, had extremely valuable information to impart on a woman just starting her legal career.

Great advice was shared by the likes of Carol Fishman Cohen, author of Back on the Career Track: A Guide for Stay-at-Home Moms Who Want to Return to Work, who reiterated Lynn Hecht Schafran’s point at our Ms. JD conference last month, that Sandra Day O’Connor never entirely left the profession to raise her children—she was active in the bar and the Republican party the whole time.

Deborah Epstein Henry, founder and president of the consulting firm that released “Best Law Firms for Women,” pointed out that firms want to hire and retain talented women, and might be willing to accommodate alternate schedules and time off to keep us from leaving entirely. Firms like Skadden, Arps have developed programs in which women can take up to three years off work, raise children, and re-enter the firm still sharp on their legal skills.Finally, several panelists pointed out that working and raising children is probably the norm—as opposed to the old model of working and having a spouse raise them for you. The new model requires some shifting in the entire structure of law firms. Lucky for my generation, some shifting has already begun.

There’s no reason for law students to learn this too late. Plan ahead and look for advice from veterans who have made it through past darker days of women’s issues in the legal profession.

ACLU gains admission for women into private club [Clippings]

Salon.com reports that the ACLU has successfully argued for the admission of women into Mystic, California's influential German Social Society Frohsinn, Inc., a social networking organization. This hardly spells the end of gender exclusive provate clubs. In fact the more entrenched and traditional the exclusivity of an establishment is, the more likely it will be constitutionally protected.

Does your firm offer in-house career counseling?

Recently I wrote about lawyer development, urging firms to invest as much in the success of their existing attorneys as they do in hooking new hires. Here's one way: some firms are retaining in-house career counselors for associates. Niraj Chokshi reports that a few firms are staffing these formal, permanent positions.

The position, say firm development managers, offers associates a neutral and confidential third party to go to with questions: How do I stay on track to make partner? How do I better build my practice? How can I switch practices? How do I get out of here?

There are a couple of business reasons for in-house career counseling...

[More after the jump]