stemming the female exodus

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Stemming the female exodus

Work-life issues driving women away from law career after only a few years

By Andrea Lekushoff

March 22 2013 issue

For more than a decade, women have been entering the

legal profession in record numbers. In Canada, women

constitute approximately 50 per cent of law school

students, and according to the Federation of Law

Societies of Canada, the majority of lawyers who have

been in practice five years or less are women.

But instead of moving toward partnership, women areleaving the profession in droves. Those who remain often

become in-house counsel where the focus typically isnt

on face time or billable hours. As a result, women

account for less than 20 per cent of partners in North

American law firms.

This issue affects almost every law firms bottom line.

And with a Canadian labour shortage expected as soon
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as 2020, retaining senior female lawyers is becoming

increasingly important. To keep top talent and remain

competitive, firms must develop policies to ensure that

talented practitionersboth men and womenhave theflexibility to raise families, care for aging parents, and

devote time to personal needs.

Several studies reveal that the leading reason for this

exodus is work-life balance. The Catalyst report Beyonda Reasonable Doubt: Creating Opportunities for Better

Balance indicated that 75 per cent of female associates

and 69 per cent of female partners found it difficult to

manage the demands of work and personal life.

The Law Society of Upper Canadas Working Group on

Retaining Female Lawyers in Private Practice reported in

2008 that although both men and women identify time spent with their family as the aspect of their

life that gives them the most satisfaction, maintaining demanding law careers often conflicts with

family life and is the most common reason for leaving law practice.

The report also found that women [in law] are particularly affected by the unavailability of support

and benefits such as part-time partnerships, part-time employment, predictable hours, job sharing and

flexibility in hours.

Yet, many of these women care passionately about law and want to continue practising. A change in

management approach is clearly neededpreferably driven and enforced by senior partnerstoallow lawyers to maintain work-life balance without either overt or covert damage to their careers.

Women now constitute nearly half of the North American workforce, and in nearly half of householdsall adults work, but the business model of most Canadian law firms has not evolved to reflect this.

Although certain practices and files demand frequent travel, long hours, or work that must be done

face to face (for example, litigation and corporate law), other aspects of the profession can be done

independently or remotely (wills, estates, and pensions). As such, the traditional billable-hours model

(and its associated culture of long and unpredictable hours, and being constantly on call) doesnt have

to remain the primary or even the only method used within a firm. It is possible to incorporate work

models that allow associates to leave the office at a foreseeable time on most days and to make

weekend and vacation plans.
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One innovative model that permits part-time work or time off to have a family is the lifestyle-driven

virtual team. Technology enables team members chosen for their complementary skills and

knowledge to stay connected and to work from any location, thus rewarding productivity and results

over face time while allowing professionals to optimize their personal time. It removes the emphasis

on billable hours and instead focuses on the number of hours each associate wants to work, with

compensation tailored accordingly.

Although virtual teams are not yet commonplace in the legal profession, research suggests theyshould be. In the Catalyst report Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: Lawyers State Their Case on Job

Flexibility, 69 per cent of lawyers who had never used a flexible work arrangement said they wanted

to, and 86 per cent of those who had used one said they wanted to do so again. Yet, 50 per cent of

respondents also thought their firms were doing poorly or very poorly in providing such

arrangements.

This does not bode well either for retaining senior female lawyers or attracting the next generation. In

a recent study, Prof. Alison Konrad of the Richard Ivey School of Business asked undergraduate

business students how an employer could make their chosen career more attractive. Most of the

respondents were women in their early 20s, and the most frequent responses they gave were flexiblehours, the ability to work from home, less face time and a family-friendly culture.

With the appropriate cultural shift and best practices, virtual teams can work for many firms, practice

areas or specific files especially when the model is supported by firm leadership. Sometimes, a

relatively small shift in policy can facilitate more flexible work arrangements. For example, certain

firms have internally imposed constraints on sharing the workload because the leadership prefers to

minimize the number of associate names on a client bill, but this is a matter of protocol rather than

necessity. Although several associates may have the expertise to work on a given project

interchangeably, the culture prohibits them from doing so. Partners can also be reluctant to bring in

less revenue per associate, but smaller firms have learned to do so in order to keep talent. Somefirms could also reap benefits by viewing and treating their associates less as commodities and more

as individuals who require and deserve balance between their personal and professional lives.

Although law firms often strive to create an equal-opportunity workplace, many are still consciously or

unconsciously discriminatory. Some female lawyers worry about having children before making

partner and/or being removed from rewarding cases or from the partnership track if they take

maternity leave, while others feel anxious that those who fill in for them during maternity leave could

start to campaign for their jobs, making it more difficult to return to work. These concerns undoubtedly
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shape their professional experience.

This work climate comes at a high price to both individual firms and the profession as a whole.

According to the Catalyst report Reasonable Doubt: Building the Business Case for Flexibility in

Canadian Law Firms, the financial cost of an associates departure is approximately twice that

persons annual salary. In addition are the intangible costs of losing senior practitioners who take with

them years of training and hard-earned relationships with clients, disrupting internal dynamics and

client relationships alike.

It is therefore in every firms best interest to remediate attrition. The high cost of losing clients and

attracting new ones ensures that most firms go to great lengths to keep current clients happy. By

extension, retaining female associates is far less expensive than developing new ones. As such, firms

should strive to keep their current employees happy, even if it means accommodating some with

flexible work arrangements.

While some firms maintain unrealistic billing targets, others recognize that attracting top clients and

enjoying a widely varied, high-level practice should not necessitate the exodus of female lawyers.

Firms that implement true work-life balance initiatives often report reduced employee attrition, greater

productivity and morale, higher work quality and client satisfaction, and substantial savings inrecruitment, replacement and training.

As social change takes hold in the legal profession and as lawyers begin to demand more control over

how, when, and where they work, forward-looking firms that embrace variations of lifestyle-driven

virtual teams will secure a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining the best and brightest

minds the profession has to offer.

Andrea Lekushoff is president of Toronto-based public re lations firm Broad Reach Communications. It

uses senior associates to deliver client work in a flexible, family-friendly work environment.

Click here to see this article in our digital edition (available to subscribers).

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