Since the lay-offs this spring a lot of lawyers who still have jobs have found themselves with a significantly increased workload. For one lawyer the increase wasn't just in volume but in kind: when her department lost a number of her male colleagues she finally got to write a brief.

Recently I got to catch up with an old friend who's been working for a big firm in a relatively small litigation department. Initially she'd been struggling to serve in something more than a support role. She found herself and other women in her department relegated to discreet research and revision roles while her male counterparts were given lead roles writing full briefs.

Then the downturn forced firms to cut their numbers. We know from recent work by NAWL and PAR that while women represent a disproportionate number of the part-time attorneys who were let go. But among full-time attorneys men were laid off proportionate to their numbers. I would argue that a wage gap between male and female attorneys may play a role in this, but I digress. 

My friend kept her job, while a number of men in her department moved on. And finally her department head had no choice but to give her the good work. Now she's had 6 solid months of it and there's a downside to the upside to the downturn: she's exhausted. 

Meanwhile the department has begun filling in the holes left by her male colleagues' departures. Once again the new men have gotten good assignments right from the start while the women are disproportionately assigned database projects and other less substantive work. 

All in all a classic failure to effectively nurture promising young female talent, but at least someone got some good experience out of this mess, even if only for a short time.