What’s Happening in Law Firms Today?
By Susan Smith Blakely • April 08, 2021 •Careers, Firms and the Private Sector
Law firms are changing. The pandemic has changed just about everything in business, and law firms are no exception. So what are the big changes that law firms and their members are experiencing these days? The biggest news involves bonuses. The Internet is jumping on an almost daily basis with news of the ongoing bonus war and one more BigLaw firm added to the big bonus list. Even big signing bonuses for associates, sometimes up to six figures. All of this bonus activity has caused me to wonder what is driving it. After all, the law business has just come…
Welcome 2021!
By Susan Smith Blakely • January 07, 2021 •Careers, Other Career Issues
Below is an excerpt from the November/December Best Friends at the Bar Newsletter published just in time to say goodbye to 2020. The newsletter publishes bi-monthly, and you can receive it by signing up on the website or e-mailing me at susansmithblakely@gmail.com. You will be joining more than 800 lawyers and law firms that receive the newsletters and rely on it for updates on news about millennial and women lawyers. As we bid an enthusiastic farewell to 2020 and look forward to the new year, the challenges of 2020 have focused my thoughts on the importance of empathy and caring for the less…
It’s All About The Women
By Susan Smith Blakely • December 10, 2020 •Careers, Other Career Issues
I am always advocating for capable women, and I love doing it. That includes not just women lawyers, but also women doctors, women business owners, women sales clerks, women astronauts, and women who teach our children. Women have been overlooked for too long, and they deserve the recognition. But right now, I am particularly enthused for the future of women lawyers. I am seeing women advanced in the judiciary in increasing numbers. I am seeing unprecedented percentages of women lawyers elevated to cabinet positions, and I am seeing women lawyers step up in leading roles in Congress. For example, earlier…
How RBG Helped Lead the Way to Women’s Financial Independence
By Susan Smith Blakely • September 29, 2020 •Issues, Other Issues
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is gone. Our mentor is missing. We all should be very sad. Our politics do not matter in this context. We all are women. We all should be grateful that this small and powerful woman walked amongst us. I was in law school at Georgetown Law (then Georgetown University Law Center (GULC)) during the mid 1970’s when Ruth Bader Ginsburg was arguing cases on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union and setting the foundation for women’s rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It is entirely possible that most…
What’s Up With the July Bar Exam?
By Susan Smith Blakely • September 11, 2020 •Careers, Other Career Issues
Just when we thought that the legal profession was finally showing signs of thinking with a new collective brain while problem solving during a pandemic, along came the July Bar Exam, and bar examiners across the country short circuited and set us back again. They have demonstrated once again that the profession is archaic and stuck in past practices just for the sake of it. Certainly not for the logic of it. Here is a link to provide some of the sordid details about how this has unfolded. It is amazing to see bar examiners struggle with decisions of whether to continue…
The Dilemma Surrounding the July 2020 Bar Exams
By Susan Smith Blakely • July 16, 2020 •Careers, Other Career Issues
The pandemic has caused a multitude of problems for our world and our country. Some of them involve life and death issues, and, certainly, nothing compares to those. Others involve economic issues like business closings, bankruptsy filings, struggles to feed families and pay the rent and issues surrounding school closings. Still others involve interference with important highly anticipated events involving families and friends, which have had to be cancelled or rescheduled, and the list goes on and on. Concerns about an entire generation of young people, Generation Z, whose members have experienced gratification postponement and the effects of isolation that…
Maternity Leave For Women Lawyers is No Vacation
By Susan Smith Blakely • July 10, 2020 •Careers, Firms and the Private Sector
Maternity leave is a precious and necessary time for bonding with a newborn. It also is a woman’s contribution to a more evolved and stable society. But it ain’t no vacation. It ain’t no boondoggle. Let’s get that straight. There are many inequities for women lawyers — still. You know it. Yes, things have improved since I was climbing the ladder to partnership so many years ago, but progress has been slow. The profession is still riddled with both conscious and unconscious bias, sexual harassment is still practiced as if without impunity, and women lawyers bear the burden…
Promo Strategies for Women-Owned Law Firms
By Susan Smith Blakely • May 07, 2020 •Careers, Other Career Issues
A lot is changing in the law profession today. The legal websites, blogs and periodicals are following all of it, and I have an article coming out soon in the ABA Journal addressing what law firm leaders can learn from coronavirus. I will share a link with you when I have it. Technology has rapidly changed law practice during the isolation we all are experiencing, and there is well-informed speculation that these same technological applications will be just as valuable post COVID-19 as they have been during mandatory working from home. The need for expensive brick and mortar offices will be…
What Can Law Firm Leaders Learn from a Pandemic?
By Susan Smith Blakely • April 23, 2020 •Careers, Firms and the Private Sector
Law firm leaders come in all shapes, sizes, skin colors and backgrounds. They are both male and female, young and old. Some are effective, and some are not. And the differences in their effectiveness as leaders are especially apparent during a challenging time like a pandemic, which changes all the traditional rules in a very traditional profession. Like wheat and chaff, like milk and cream. Only the best rise to the top --- or, at least, that is the way it should work. So, what can effective leaders learn from a pandemic. It is an odd question, but it needs…