Dean Elena Kagan: Status Report on Women in the Legal Profession
By Elena Kagan • March 22, 2007 •First Women
Editor's Note: As part of Ms. JD's 5th Birthday celebration, we'll be looking back at our favorite posts over the years.While Dean at Harvard Law School, now Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan penned this guest post for us. Greetings—and congratulations to all—on the launch of Ms. JD! A little over a year ago, I prepared a sort of “status report” on women and the legal profession for a talk I had the honor of delivering at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. It was a terrific opportunity to reflect on both the tremendous strides already…
BigLaw Swag and Sway
By Kalo Kagathia • March 22, 2007 •Firms and the Private Sector
As most of my other posts reveals, I enjoy skimming
Security screening
By JCD • March 22, 2007 •Politics and Government
I personally experienced the changing face of the U.S. legal profession on Capitol Hill when I attended a hearing held in a Senate office building as a member of the general public. The security detail posted at the entrance treated me like a Senator.
“The Opt-Out Myth” by E.J. Graff
By Yes, Virginia • March 22, 2007 •Balancing Private and Professional Life
Here's a very interesting article by E.J. Graff in the Columbia Journalism Review entitled "The Opt-Out Myth." It is partly a response to Lisa Belkin's article "The Opt Out Revolution" that came out in the New York Times magazine in 2003 and other similar articles that have been coming out on the topic (the Times, for instance, appears to feel compelled to publish such pieces every six months or so). "The Opt-Out Myth" highlights the problems with framing this topic in this way, and pushes back on some conventional wisdom that usually attends these discussions: "The moms-go-home story keeps coming…
Beyond Balance—Changing the Construct
By Yes, Virginia • March 21, 2007 •Balancing Private and Professional Life
There’s some very interesting discussions going on in this blog and elsewhere about work-life balance (see Jessie’s “Waste Not, Want Not?”; Carolyn Elefant’s “The Importance of Planning a Career,” and all the fabulous comments these have generated). To say nothing of entire blogs devoted to the topic (such as The WSJ’s The Juggle by Sara Schaefer Muñoz). So I’m adding something else into the mix: Beyond Balance, A Legal Sanity Learning Programs Eguide PDF, by Lori Herz and Arnie Herz, who blog over at Legal Sanity. Similar to
Things You Should Know About Your Taxes
By jessie kornberg • March 20, 2007 •Other Issues
Confession: I’m a total tax geek. News flash: If you care about supporting working women, you should be too, because the tax code is stacked against us. Nothing in the tax code is overtly gendered. However, because women are almost always a household’s secondary earner, and because social norms favor women in domestic roles, the tax code contains practical biases. First you have to understand what it means to have imputed income. Let’s say you cook yourself dinner, make your bed, or fix your bathroom drain. When you perform these services yourself, rather than hire someone else to do them,…
Diversity meets Women & Women finally meet Diversity
By campbell2009 • March 19, 2007 •Other Issues
When I first heard about Ms. JD, I immediately thought Ms. JD, is this Ms. America? I envisioned a competition, a crown, gowns, and long runways. My stereotypic picture was far from the truth. I read the website, met with fellow law students, and ultimately realized here was a forum where my 12-font times roman blog could matter. After discarding my uninformed and stereotypic view, I looked next for people of color. I looked at the Yale website conference site and was pleased to see faces that looked like mine. Then I discovered that here is a forum where diversity…
Law: A Trade or a Profession?
By Beth Bernstein • March 17, 2007 •Curriculum and Classroom Dynamics
In a recent Wall Street Journal article, two female professors from Boston University Law School addressed this issue. Apparently, in a prior article, Cameron Stracher, publisher of New York Law School Law Review and co-director of the program in Law & Journalism, berated legal education and the qualification of law students. He argued that practicing law does not require intellectual work, that it is a skill acquirable by mere practice and repetition. Stracher discussed a paralegal who practiced law without a license, summarizing his view: “He blustered, bluffed, threatened and cajoled with the best of them. He knew the law…
The Cheat Sheet
By Deborah Epstein Henry • March 17, 2007 •Balancing Private and Professional Life
Context My personal goal has been to make work/life balance and women's issues a basis of competition among law firms, as historically has been the case for salary and pro bono work. As the Founder and President of Flex-Time Lawyers LLC, I have run over 100 meetings providing a forum for lawyers and legal employers to share information on work/life and women's issues to improve the retention and promotion of women in the profession. Law firm practitioners are working hard to improve the status of women inside law firms. Increasingly, in-house counsel are using diversity as a criteria for selecting…