Ms. JD Weekly Roundup: Week Ending July 2, 2009

Brabbit Gets Women Lawyers' Top Honor

Are Women in Politics Still Routinely Demeaned in the News Media, or is it All About Sarah Palin?

Second Female Managing Partner Takes Helm at Caroll, Burdick & McDonough

Orrick Gives the Boot to Lockstep-Associate Model

EpsteinBeckerGreen Recognized for Commitment to Diversity

Four New York Firms Slide Off A-List

Another View: In Praise of Law Firm Layoffs

Munger Tolles Tops AmLaw's A-List, Once Again

Top Michigan Court Rules that Judge has the Power to Ban the Muslim Veil from Courtroom

Michigan Rule of Evidence 611 has just been revised, giving judges the power to determine what witnesses should wear in their courtroom.  Recently, a divided Michigan Supreme Court approved this rule, despite protests from the American Civil Liberties Union that the rule should contain an exception for religion attire.

The issue just decided by the Michigan Supreme Court originally arose when a Muslim woman, Ginnah Muhammad, testifying in a 2006 small claims case, was asked by the judge to remove her niqab.  The judge, 31st District Judge Paul Paruk, asked her to do this so that he could see her face and judge her truthfulness.  When Muhammad refused, the judge dismissed her case.  Her subsequent federal suit against Judge Paruk was also later dismissed.

The Michigan Supreme Court ruling, a 5-2 decision, gives judges the power to require that witnesses remove head and facial coverings.  To read Martha Neil's full report on this case click here.

Advice on Passing the Bar Exam: Part II

"A word about panic: I took the California exam and my computer failed..." Though my heart just stopped on her behalf, Jessie passed the bar anyway. How did she do it? Read on! --Ed.

For those prepping for the [July] sitting, a word about panic: I took the California exam and my computer failed in the middle of the second essay day. My screen just turned bright blue. I raised my hand and the proctor handed me a piece of paper that instructed me to try restarting and then switch to a bluebook. So I restarted - and started writing in the bluebook while my computer rebooted. My computer crashed again about one minute after rebooting, at which point I abandoned it and stuck to the bluebook.

I think two things saved me...

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...

Putting on Heels

While getting ready this morning, I listened to a piece on NPR, Workers Dressing Better To Hold On To Jobs:

The recession is changing the workplace in many ways. Financial Times columnist Lucy Kellaway says many workers are kicking it up a notch with dressier work clothes and more formal e-mails. Kellaway tells Renee Montagne that's because employees are trying to hold onto their jobs.

Listen to the piece here.

In her Financial Times column, Lucy Callaway has argued in the past that dressing to impress lifts spirits and increases productivity. She advocates for replacing Casual Friday with High Heels Fridays:

I have a friend who has just been appointed to a senior managerial job and her first decision has been to launch High Heels Friday. Early soundings suggest that this is going to be popular with her female staff.

Ms. Manners: Blogging from the Dinner Table

This weekend everyone's favorite style mavens at the New York Times weighed in on the propriety of smartphone interuptions during business meetings. As in "is it ok to check email on my iPhone during a potential pitch from a potential contractor?"

To which I say, "SERIOUSLY?!?!" I mean how is there any debate here. Of course it's rude. Of course it's inappropriate. If you're important enough, you can get away with it. But better hope you don't need to leave anybody with the impression you care about them, their work, their time, etc. 

The more interesting question to me, is the extent to which the same smartphone usage is acceptable in a social as opposed to a professional setting. If we go to brunch on Sunday are we all free to check crackberries mid-mimosa? Are the rules different if we're all lawyers?

So to readers out there: Do you have smartphone boundaries? Are they self-imposed or externally created?

The National Association of Women Lawyers 2009 Annual Awards Luncheon

The National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) will be holding its 2009 Annual Awards Luncheon on Thursday, July 23, from noon to 2 pm, at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York.

The honorees include: Marcia Greenberger, Founder & Co-President of the National Women's Law Center; the General Mills Legal Department; LexisNexis; Holly Fujie, President of the State Bar of California; Nicole M. Liechty; and Saretta C. McDonough, Chair of the NAWL Mentor Program Committee.

For more information about the event and to register, click here.

Sotomayor & the Belizean Grove: Are We Really Ready to Move Beyond Exclusivity?

Over the weekend, Judge Sotomayor resigned her membership in the Belizean Grove in anticipation of her Senate confirmation hearings. Ever since I heard the news, I've been trying to decide what I think about her membership and the negative reaction to it. On the one hand, I'm all for camping, networking, and new age old girls clubs. On the other hand, I'm not convinced that only girls clubs are more effective networking tools for professional women than gender-nuetral associations. Plus there's a legitimate aversion among many women to gender distinction of any kind. 

This is hardly idle daydreaming, after all Ms. JD, while not as exclusive as the Grove, is in part organized around the principle that women can and should be helping other women. Though we are an inclusive forum open to all political, personal and profesisonal viewpoints, inherently we have highlighted, albeit in an attempt to nuetralize, the role gender plays in the profession.

Bar Exam Tips

This is the time of year when people, some annonymous, some not, start posting their advice for studying for the July bar exam on various web sites such as Ms. JD.  I still read a number of these websites -- the same ones that I read when I was in law school.   It is my recent reading of some of that advice that has prompted this post.   I will try to address a few common threads that I see handed out as internet advice, each of which I have affectionately called "myths" below.  Obviously, this is also just one person's advice so take it with a grain of salt...

Myth #1:  If you study too much, you will burn out.  First of all, who is to say how much studying is too much?  I had classmates who studied around the clock in law school.  They outlined, re-outlined, made flashcards, joined study groups, bought 3-4 hornbooks per class, and on and on.  I knew people that took the same approach to the bar exam.  They signed up for three or more prep courses, hired a tutor, listened to PMBR on tape in the car and in the gym and on and on.  In each case, that didn't seem to "burn" these folks out.  They handled it just fine.  I guess my point is that the point when studying is "too much" is different for everyone.  Don't listen to the person next to you in BarBri that says that if you study more than 4 hours a day, you'll burn yourself out before the exam.  Also, this is likely the most important test that you'll ever take.  In many states, such as CA, if you pass you'll never know your score.  That means that you'll never know if you studied too much or just enough.  The only way to find out your score is to fail and...well... that doesn't seem like a great way to determine if you are studying too much. Therefore, I say study all that you can handle, emotionally, physically, socially, etc. 

Myth #2: If you did well in law school, you'll do fine on the bar exam.  Obviously, this is a flawed premise as you know that there are people at your law school that did very well but can't pass a bar exam for anything.

Finding a Safe Harbor Mentor

Ed. Note: The following article, by April A. Christine, comes to Ms. JD from the Los Angeles Lawyer.

barristers tips BY APRIL A. CHRISTINE

Los Angeles Lawyer March 2009

 Finding a Safe Harbor Mentor 

A PERFECT STORM OCCURRED in October 1991 when three storms combined into one off the coast of Gloucester, Massachusetts. The combined storm created waves 10 stories high and winds of 120 miles an hour, whipping the sea to heights that only a few witnessed and fewer survived. While the perfect storm, as memorialized in a book and recounted in cinema, was a historic event, it can be compared to events that happen in everyday lives in the workplace. When opposing counsel appear inflexible, clients overly demanding, supervisors watching and evaluating every move, and colleagues circling like vultures waiting for the untutored to stumble and fail, the legal profession can seem like the perfect storm. To stave off the potential devastation of a perfect legal storm, it is important to find a mentor who can act as a safe harbor, assisting in navigating through the politically stormy waters of the legal profession.

A safe harbor mentor serves as a trusted counselor or teacher—someone to whom the protégé can ask questions, seek guidance, bounce ideas, and discuss issues one would not normally discuss with a supervisor. Providing a safe harbor, however, is not to be confused with harboring misconduct. Mutual trust in a safe harbor relationship is essential. A safe harbor mentor should also not be put in an advocacy or mediator role between the protégé and his or her supervisor. Instead, a safe harbor mentor guides the mentee in making sound professional decisions.

ABA Nominations: light on the ladies

13 = nominations for ABA leadership under consideration

4 = number of female nominees (and three of the four are at-large, as opposed to Board of Governors spots)

0 = number of women of color nominees (actually all the nominees, both male and female appear to be white)

So what is going on at the ABA?

Advice for Passing the Bar Exam

Ed. Note: This summer, back by popular demand, Ms. JD is pleased to feature a series of posts on bar exam prep.  The series will include some of our most highly-read articles from past years, as well as new content for all those taking on the bar exam challenge.  Good luck! 

I know the [July] bar is fast approaching, so I thought I’d share the preparation advice I jotted down for my younger law school friends after taking the New York bar [...]. I wrote this when it was still fresh in my head (and before I knew that I passed), and I added some notes on thoughts I have now that I know I passed.

1. Things to keep in mind while studying with Barbri Don’t rely on Barbri’s assessment of what will and won’t be on the exam. Barbri told us not to spend time on one subject because it was rarely tested and, if tested, usually only came up in multiple choice questions. To the horror and surprise of me and everyone else in the room who had taken Barbri, half of an entire essay question tested this subject. Barbri did cover the information, but no one I know studied it very intently since it was described as such a low priority. Basically, Barbri doesn’t have a crystal ball, so you shouldn’t take their word for it when they predict things that are unlikely to appear.

The real MBE questions are harder than the Barbri practice exams. I found the MBE much harder than the questions in the Barbri review books and on the Barbri practice test. First, the real MBE questions bring in terminology from legal subjects outside the six tested (like wills, for example). There were also answer choices listing obscure legal doctrines that possibly existed but which I’d never seen before. I have no idea if these answer choices were right or just red herrings, but it was unnerving to see doctrines of which I’d never heard or seen applied to the context of the question. [Note: After finding out that I did quite well on the MBE, I can now advise NOT to fall for these red herrings. I NEVER chose an answer choice with a legal doctrine of which I’d never heard—I assumed they were red herrings. It’s possible I was wrong since I don’t know which questions I missed since that breakdown isn’t included with my score, but given my overall MBE score, I have to assume that the obscure legal doctrine answers really were red herrings.]

Ms. JD Public Interest Summer Scholarship Winner: Christina Calloway

Ms. JD is pleased to feature our second winner of Ms. JD's Public Interest Summer Scholarship, Christina Calloway.  Here is her winner essay submission:

“You’re getting old. You should get married soon before you are too old to have children.” At 26 years old and finishing my second year of law school, my grandmother said these words to me. Once I processed the words the woman that I love dearly had said to me, I realized that my grandmother and I have very different expectations about the role of a woman and how the career she chooses affects her personal life. My grandmother has lived through 80 years of changes in this country, including the historic election of the first African-American president and having an African-American First Lady, yet she still believes women should be married and actively pursuing a family at my age. I am one generation removed from the idea advanced by men, and sometimes women, that a woman’s role in society is as a wife and mother.

Although I accept the great significance of a woman in this capacity, for the women that have fought for my right to choose to be anything, I refuse to accept the stereotype of a woman as only one thing. My mother represents another generation: progressive, ambitious, and strong. Basically, she could care less about the fact that I am not married and that I have yet to make her a grandmother. My mother is extremely proud of my decision to take a journey that many do not have to courage to pursue. She loves the idea that I will be a part of a group of women that have that courage to become an attorney. The woman who told me those words above raised her and she had followed them. Her “career” expectations were to get married, have children, and have a stable family life and at the age of 21 that is exactly what she achieved. By the age of 26, the same age I am now, my mother was divorced, had two children, and no education past high school. I believe she understood at that age that her daughters would achieve more than she had by being educated beyond high school and she pushed that idea my entire life. In her 30s, my mother followed the tone of her generation, progressive, ambitious, and strong, and pursued higher education. She is the example that propelled my ambitions and dreams, whatever they may be.

My career expectations differ from those of previous generations, even different from those of my mother’s, because I do not want to be one thing.

Ms. JD Public Interest Summer Scholarship Winner: Sarah Mazzochi

Ms. JD is pleased to feature Sarah Mazzochi, winner of Ms. JD's Public Interest Summer Scholarship.  Here is her winning essay submission:

I believe my generation fully expects to have it all, have it all be fabulous-- career, husband, family—and not compromise. My mother spent the majority of her life making sure her husband’s life was easy, her family was well taken care of, with her own wants and needs a distant third. But like many Americans, divorce, the economic downturn, and a career change later, my mother stood at a crossroads a few years back. Stay with her husband, my father, and try and make it work? Stay with a failing family business and try and make it work? Stay with a house that’s soon to be foreclosed? Stay in a dead-end job? For the first time in a long while, she chose what’s best for her and she was terrified.

Today she’s going back to school and happier than she’s been in quite some time even with the swirling uncertainty of the future. Twenty years ago I seriously doubt she would have had the courage to do that, but I’m so proud that she did. Maybe that’s why she encouraged me so much to become a lawyer. She never had her own source of income. She was never independent from her husband in any important way. Depending solely on men hasn’t done her any favors and she made sure that I knew, to have it all, I’d have to get it all myself.

I believe women of my generation believe all things are possible but don’t see attaining a husband as the golden ticket it once was.

Ms. JD Proudly Announces the Winners of Ms. JD's Public Interest Summer Scholarship

Ms. JD is pleased to announce the two winners of our Public Interest Summer Scholarship: Sarah Mazzochi and Christina Calloway!  These women truly exemplify commitments to public interest law through their work, studies and life stories.  Thank you to all of those who sent in submissions - we received so many thought-provoking pieces. 

Be sure to check back at Ms. JD as we feature scholarship winners Sarah Mazzochi and Christina Calloway, along with their winning essay submissions.