Blog #39: Status of Women in Law

Many things need to change in order to promote the equality between men and women in the law firm.  They also need to respect the family life that every attorney has at home, and understand that they have an obligation to take care of and spend time with their family.  Being constantly connected to their work world severely takes away from their home life.  Their children have to be in day care longer, their relationship with their spouse can suffer and they aren't able to recover from the long hours and stressful job material.  Nothing is going to be able to change the stress level of an attorney at a firm, and the hours that they are SOMETIMES forced to work as long as this is occasional.  Every job at some point can require a little bit of over time as long as they are compensated.  

Along with this understanding of family life, if a part time schedule is offered, then they need to only work part time hours.  If they are full time they need to work full time hours.  Certain attorneys that work part time should not be overlooked for opportunities because of their commitment to their family.  Often, the women in the relationship have to make it their priority to care for the children because the man won't and they should be looked up to for this, and not be forced to give up their career.  Men and women need to be paid on the same pay scale.  There is no reason that they should be paid only 76% of what men are paid, when they are doing the exact same job and putting in the exact same amount of work.  This will help to improve the moral of the female employees because they are finally on the same level as men.  

Overall, the legal profession needs to understand the differences between men and women but those differences should mean nothing towards their work ethic, how much they are paid, or how they are treated at work.  They should all be treated the same depending on their education and skill level, the only things that should matter to an employer.