Call for Submissions: IILP Review 2012: The State of Diversity and Inclusion in the Legal Profession (Deadline May 25, 2012)

Highlight noteworthy diversity and inclusion efforts for the rest of the legal profession in the “IILP Review 2012: The State of Diversity and Inclusion in the Legal Profession!”

If your law firm, law department, agency, bar association, or other organization has a particularly successful or innovative program or initiative, has published a new report, or has released the results of new research you’ve undertaken that helps advance diversity and inclusion efforts in the legal profession and you think other members of the profession would benefit from knowing about it, spread the word about your efforts! IILP is now compiling its Practice Round-Up which will be included in the “IILP Review 2012: The State of Diversity and Inclusion in the Legal Profession” which will be published this fall. The Practice Round-Up is your chance to highlight your diversity and inclusion efforts and celebrate your successes with your colleagues around the US and abroad.

Ladies Day, an Excerpt from Women in Law by Dr. Cynthia Fuchs Epstein

Editor's note: The following excerpt is from Women in Law by Dr. Cynthia Fuchs Epstein. The thirtieth anniversary edition is now available in paperback from Quid Pro Books, with a new foreward by Deborah Rhode. It is also available for Kindle and Kindle apps, Nook and Nook apps, and direct on Apple iBooks and iTunes (search by title or author name).  We applaud Harvard Women, Class of 1968, who helped Ladies’ Day become a memory.

Some law professors called on women in their classes with an eye to singularly embarrass them. … And all women students knew they would be asked to recite on “Ladies’ Day,” an institution common in many schools. Harriet Rabb recalled that at Columbia,

I heard of Ladies’ Day here when the professor would say, “Will all the little virgins please come to the front of the room.” Of course the women didn’t know whether to go or not. And when I was in school here between 1963 and 1966 there was one teacher who was known for his “Valentine’s Day massacre.” The women were obliged at the beginning of the hour to stand up at their seats and remain standing through the hour and get called on … and that would be the day when he did all the embarrassing and difficult-to-discuss problems.

Best Friends at the Bar: Pearls of Wisdom About Women in Leadership

From time to time I read something that I do not even want to try to summarize here.  It is just too good, and I do not have anything to add that would improve it.  This is one of those times.

Here is a reprint of an article from yesterday’s Huffington Post on line that you will want to read.  It goes way beyond women in the law, and that is what I like about it so much.  It is a call to action for all women.  I hope you enjoy it and share it with your friends—both females and those valued males who are supportive of women in leadership.  After you read it, ask yourself what you can do to advance this cause.  The possibilities are endless.

Leadership: It’s a Female Thing, Huffington Post on line
By Monika Mitchell, CEO, Good Business International Inc.
Posted: 02/22/2012 4:10 pm

Best Friends at the Bar

GOOD NEWS FOR WOMEN LAWYERS—MORE BEST FRIENDS AT THE BAR COMING YOUR WAY!

POSTED ON JANUARY 13, 2012

Best Friends at the Bar

GOOD NEWS!

And Many More ... (Happy Birthday Ms. JD!)

Six years ago, when we first launched the site, each Ms. JD board member chose a tag line for their profile that was supposed to express why they wanted to be a part of Ms. JD. Mine was, "because I want an old girls club."

Ms. JD has become that and I am so grateful to be a member. 

I am grateful because we really do have an incredible network that delivers precisely the kinds of benefits and support I was imagining when I used that phrase, but it's not just another version of the old boys club. The whole point of the old boys club is that it was exclusive. Ms. JD has managed to confer the same connections and opportunities for its members while remaining open, transparent, and totally inclusive.

Better still, the connections among Ms. JD's members aren't based on pedigree but on shared experience. Whether you connect to Ms. JD's network by helping raise funds to send women to law school in Uganda, as a blogger among our Writers in Residence, or as an attendee at a film screening on your campus - the connections formed through Ms. JD are more than skin deep.

No Interesting Women Lawyers?

U.C. Hastings and California Lawyer are cohosting a series of probing interviews with prominent lawyers, judges, and academics. The series, Legally Speaking: Conversations with the Most Interesting Lawyers in the World, features conversations with ten lawyers, claimed to be the most interesting attorneys  “in the entire world.”

Of the ten most interesting lawyers in the entire world (according to Hastings and California Lawyer)? Only one is a woman. 

Lainey Feingold, a disability rights lawyer in Berkeley, California, asks: is this really how these institutions see women attorneys in 2011?

This American Life: Old Boys Network

On my run last night I listened to a great episode, Old Boys Network, from This American Life. If you have an extra hour (ha, ha), I'd highly recommend streaming this free episode.

Act One: In a small west Texas town called Kermit, two nurses were accused of harassment after they complained to the medical board that a doctor was putting patients in danger. The nurses were fired and then arrested, facing ten years in prison. Reporter Saul Elbein found that a group of powerful men in Kermit went to extreme and sometimes ridiculous lengths to try to bring down these nurses.

Act Two: judge wannabes working with the old boys network. Ira Glass talks with Chicago Sun-Times political reporter Abdon Pallasch, who since 1996 has covered the meeting where the Chicago political machine decides who it'll put on the ballot to become a judge.

Nurses and lawyers: guess which group stood up to the man?

Special Offer for Our NYC Readers!

Ms. JD would like to offer ten lucky readers tickets to our NYC event next Tuesday, June 21, for $25 (a $50 savings)!

The event features remarks by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Deputy Director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the New York Times bestseller The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, open bar, and great raffle prizes including a $1,000 luxury shopping package from the Carlisle Collection, pilates and yoga from Refine Method, and more!  

The first 10 readers to email president@ms-jd.org with the subject line "Count me in on June 21st!" can purchase tickets to this great event for the discounted price of $25!

We hope to see you there!

Should we change our name when we marry?

I have not posted for several months. My life has been turned upside-down, and I have never been happier.  For one, I got engaged to my soulmate in December, and we are planning an October wedding.  Secondly, with his support and encouragement and after deep thought, I decided to pursue my real dream. . . to go out on my own.  

I joined a friend from law school that is running a small, successful law firm.  His partner was taking the California bar exam, and he wanted me to join in as a named partner.  Our law firm name - Campinha-Bacote & Chang, LLC - is now Campinha-Bacote & Starling, LLC.  Starling reflects my soon-to-be married last name.

This was an extremely difficult decision for me. I've been practicing a couple of years, and, like many others, all of my professional and personal accomplishments have been achieved as Ashley Rutherford. Additionally, being independent and proud of who I am, I have had a hard time giving up that part of me. I could hyphenate, but if I did, my signature block would be so long, I would literally have to start it in the center of the page. So, after careful consideration, I have decided to assume my husband's last name and after a small transition time, drop "Rutherford".