Women-at-Law

Phyllis Horn Epstein


ABA Law Practice Management Section. $49.95 Available on-line at: www.abanet.org/lpm/catalog/promo/072904.html

James Morton


Although this book has been written specifically for ‘women at law’ in the US – offering ‘lessons learned along the pathways to success’ – there is plenty to interest their transatlantic counterparts, male and female.


It is also entertaining in passages that point up the differences in practice on either side of the Atlantic, as in the section on the clothing women should adopt in court. According to the author: ‘Appearances are everything’, some favour button-down Oxford shirts, but one noted lawyer prefers a cowboy jacket, another a black hat, and a third has a signature red bow-tie. It is ultimately, perhaps, an argument for the retention in this country of the wig and gown. In the old stipes’ courts, these practitioners would have been met with the coded phrase ‘I can’t hear you’.


The wholly readable sections include ‘Dating and Romance’ in which a variety of lawyers bewail their date fate. In the US, to say one is a lawyer seems to be a good way to kill off a potential relationship. Women lawyers are considered to be threatening. ‘[It is] harder to get a date now that I’m a lawyer than it was when I was an art historian,’ writes a lonely heart from Salt Lake City. Another, perhaps sensibly, refuses to go out with other lawyers &150; ‘Why have two people in a relationship with debating skills?’ she asks.


Other sections naturally include part-time work, time out (which looks at the fear of falling behind), balancing career and family &150; ‘Mommy on a beeper’, career choices and, crucially, fair treatment, of which one Californian lawyer comments: ‘A level playing field is good, but I’d settle for the same playing field.’


One of the other universal problems for woman lawyers is the attitude of opposing male counterparts and their clients. What in an aggressive male lawyer may be seen as courageous, all too often becomes ‘bitchy’ if a female lawyer takes the same stance.


But this book provides a balanced look at the profession.


Men are not always regarded as adversaries and potential rapists – some are actually seen as supportive and encouraging, and it is accepted that not all legal sisters will be the same. ‘Basically the very successful women in my field… seem more interested in excluding than mentoring others,’ comments one Chicago lawyer.

The sections usually end with a first person ‘A day in the life’, and the parallels with practice here are all too clear. Susan, a single parent with an 11-year-old daughter and a nine-year-old son is at the end of her tether. She can neither be the parent she would like to be nor the lawyer she would wish to be and is seriously thinking of pursuing a different career.