A Case in Equity

Allegheny County starts gender equality institute

By Daniel Casciato

The Allegheny County Bar Association continues its proactive measures in improving the gender equality issues still confronting today's legal profession by becoming the first bar association in the nation to form an Institute for Gender Equality.

Last summer, the bar association was the first in the country to hire a gender equality coordinator after a 2005 bar association membership survey showed no change in the pay disparity between male and female attorneys over the last 15 years. The survey indicated that, on average, male attorneys made between $100,000 and $149,999; female attorneys made between $50,000 and $99,000. In 1990, males made between $60,000 and $79,999, while females made between $35,000 and $45,999.

"Our experience was somewhat jolting when we looked at the results 15 years after our last survey and discovered that many things have not changed at all," said Kenneth E. Gormley, president of the Allegheny County Bar Association. "It's the same experience that bar associations have had throughout the country and in virtually every major city and state that has conducted some kind of gender equality survey. This is a problem that confronts the entire profession. Where people are stalled in their tracks is trying to figure out how you reverse any of this."

The bar association hopes it found a solution in the formation of the Allegheny County Bar Association’s Institute for Gender Equality. This was one of the key recommendations in a report that the association’s Gender Equality Task Force recently released in response to the membership survey.

"There have been advances in the profession over the last 20 years dealing with job sharing, heightened sensitivity to maternity and family leaves and being able to do more work at home as a result of technology," said Gormley. "We don't want to reverse these efforts. They're great and positive and we want to foster the continuation of those advances, but it's now time to think very creatively. Sometimes even measures designed to assist females can be stigmatizing. Many of the inequalities have been unintended, unconscious—in most cases people have not set out to create these disparities—and now we have to figure out how to angle this and we intend to commit ourselves to doing that."

Linda Varrenti Hernandez, the bar's gender equality coordinator, will be the director of the Institute, which will fall under the oversight of the Allegheny County Bar Foundation. The institute will consist of programs in areas such as leadership and management, business development, negotiation skills, and work life balance. The Institute’s faculty will include local attorneys and educators and nationally known speakers.

"This is a hopeful outcome," commented Hernandez. "We couldn't be more pleased because the momentum has been amazing. Everybody we needed to partake in this process did, from judges to the law students. They should be, and we should be, as a bar association, very proud. This wasn't something we studied and dismissed or gave it some of our effort. This was a full-out effort. I'm amazed at the amount of support I received from every corner. No one said to me that this was a bad idea."

The Institute is expected to begin classes in the first quarter of 2009 and will be open to the entire membership of the bar association and the law students of the University of Pittsburgh Law School and the Duquesne University School of Law. The institute’s classes will be held at the association’s headquarters and other locations in Pittsburgh.

The curriculum will include seminars within several educational tracks, including leadership and management, business development, negotiation skills, communication skills, and work and career balance. Class size will be between 15 and 25.

"The point of the institute is to put our money where our mouth is and to figure out how we push this thing to the next level and begin to try to solve a problem," Gormley said. "It's obviously a long-term process and many people have to work together on it."

The Institute will not only conduct seminars, Gormley added, but will also be aimed at educating and working with managing partners and legal employers so that they can have a blueprint to work with and deal with both the obvious and subtle forms of gender discrepancies.

"Our goal is to create a template that legal employers can use and make it portable so it can be moved to differentsized law firms and outside of Allegheny County to start constructing best practices that mirror the ones that have clearly worked not only in Pittsburgh but all across the country," he said.

Gormley and Hernandez acknowledge that this is an ambitious undertaking and a daunting task.

"It's just time to start taking some action," said Gormley. "The problems have been identified like issues dealing with lack of mentoring, the inability to move forward because lack of rainmaking opportunities, and other issues that we can clearly identify. Now the goal is to put our collective minds together and figure out how we push this to the next level. We're committed to being leaders in the country on this and we're prepared to work with other bar associations around the country in figuring out how to implement this."

Hernandez says that through the Institute, participants will be equipped with additional leadership, management, and negotiation skills to effect change in their organizations and to help mentor future participants. "I firmly believe in the concept of if you build it they will come," she said. "People are excited about it and anxious to take classes and to just be part of this movement."

One of the major challenges for thei- Institute is funding it.

"We do have some initial funding and are very grateful to that," said Hernandez. "The bar association and the Pittsburgh legal community has been very supportive in this entire effort. The bar is willing to take on some of the funding requirement for the first year. I understand that one of my biggest jobs is going to be to raise money for the Institute, but I'm very hopeful because it's such a great cause and I think people and foundations, the Pennsylvania and American Bar associations will see the benefit in supporting this initial action."

Gormley agreed that partnerships will be instrumental in this effort.

"We already have had indications of positive support from the ABA's incoming president and the Pennsylvania Bar Association is interested in working with us as well," he said. "This is a common issue that confronts the profession and is perhaps the most significant issue confronting our profession at this time in our existence. So everyone is interested in figuring out how we move to the next step. I think we will have lots of partners in this enterprise. We welcome participation from other bars and law firms that have found successful best practices."

In addition to the formation of the Institute, the list of recommendations from the Gender Equality Task Force includes:
• Development of mentoring systems;
• Creation of an unbiased compensation system;
• Increased business development training;
• Development of programs to address negotiation skills;
• Development of Best Practices regarding work-life balance; and
• Focus on decreasing the number of female attorneys leaving the profession.

Gormley hopes that the institute and the other recommendations from the task force will help to ensure gender equality in the legal community.

"There has clearly been an exodus of female attorneys from the profession because of frustration related to barriers that don't exist in the same fashion with their male counterparts," he said. "The cost of losing those talented female attorneys is enormous for employers because they are constantly retraining attorneys. Not only do we as attorneys have a moral and professional responsibility to improve gender equality, but it makes good business sense as well."

Hernandez pauses for a moment when asked what she would view as a successful outcome from the Institute.

"I would hope for first and foremost that women would stop leaving the profession because I really hope that they understand that they can take control of their own destiny in terms of their profession," she said. "That's what the institute will offer them. We want to try to help as many lawyers as we can."