I got an e-mail the other day telling me that I should read an article published by the ABA. Normally I ignore such messages, but this one caught my eye. The title of the article was “Not One Legal Secretary Preferred Working with Women Lawyers.” Hummm. I thought. So I read it.
On Friday, October 28, 2011 the ABA Journal posted this article in their online content.
This article is based on a study called “If you become his second wife, you are a fool: Shifting paradigms of the roles, perceptions, and working conditions of legal secretaries in large law firms.” The full study is available at this link. The problem is that the ABA’s article, in my opinion, is a complete mischaracterization of the study.
On October 31, 2011, a group of women attorneys including the President of California Women Lawyers, Georgia Black Women Lawyers, and others had a phone conference with ABA Editor, Allen Pusey. Those on the call ultimately demanded an apology and a retraction. At the time of this writing, neither has happened.
On Wednesday, November 2, 2011, Forbes published a piece about women demanding an apology from the ABA.
Two days later, on Friday, November 4, 2011, the ABA ran another article, basically saying the original article did women lawyers a favor by pointing to the fact we are discriminated against, and we don’t like to talk about it, so we got angry. That is my summary. Read it and decide for yourself.
I am not a member of the ABA. I dropped my membership and I am glad I did. I think both articles should be retracted immediately. The title of the initial article is inaccurate. The study actually states that 47 percent of those surveyed had no opinion as to whether they preferred to work for male or female partners or associates. With almost half of survey respondents expressing no opinion, it is a distortion of the results to say that “not one” legal secretary preferred working with women partners.
Additionally, the article gives the impression that the survey heavily emphasized the issue of legal secretaries working with women partners. Such a survey on its face is insulting and feeds into gender stereotypes. We do not (and should not) read about surveys regarding working with partners of particular religious affiliations, ethnicities, or sexual orientations. While the study surveyed legal secretaries on a wide range of issues, two thirds of the ABA article focused on only one issue, secretaries working with women partners. By strongly focusing on the survey results dealing with legal secretaries working with women lawyers, the article misrepresents the substance of the underlying study. It gives disproportionate attention to but one of many issues addressed and in so doing continues to perpetuate negative stereotypes of women lawyers.
Legal secretaries play an important role in law firms, and surveying how that role has evolved during the past 50 years is a worthwhile endeavor. The ABA Journal’s emphasis on one aspect of that study does a disservice to legal secretaries as well as the women lawyers with whom they work. I hope you will join me in writing to that organization asking for a retraction and apology. If you are interested in more background information or the steps certain women lawyers groups are taking, please let me know. I am proud to be a DRI woman and I am proud to be on its Women in the Law Committee.
