Chapter One - American Bar Association: Fill & Download for Free

This is an interesting question. I am a member of two organizations, the Pennsylvania Bar Association and the American Bar Association. Both organizations have a group called WIP. WIP stands for women in the profession. In this case, of course, the legal profession. So I hear a lot from other women about what they encounter.But first, an anecdote. Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg was once asked, what is the right number of female Justices? 50%? She said, nine. People responded in shock. She said why are you shocked? For many years all Justices were male. No one complained about that.ChildrenThe biggest struggle most women will talk about, is balancing children and careers. They will tell you that men do not generally have the same expectations as far as child-rearing and career. And I believe this is true. I, however, do not have children, and so this particular issue has not been one I have had to face.Bitch v. NiceI would say that the biggest issue I, as a woman, have faced, is the bitch factor. That is, as a lawyer and a manager, I have to be able to manage people. And it was a struggle for me to find an “acceptable” level of handling people. This includes how I communicate with other lawyers.If I am too tough, I am a bitch. If I am too nice, I am letting people walk all over me. Meanwhile, I hear men yelling at people, and no one complains they are too mean. I give people a look (admittedly I have a hell of a look) and I am being too mean. Raise my voice? Heaven forbid.I have raised my voice exactly three times in a professional environment. I felt guilty every time. On the other hand, I have colleagues throwing staplers at people’s heads. What do they get? Stories told about them, rarely. Trouble? No. They are just lawyers being lawyers. There is even a grudging respect for it.Don’t even get me started on the “smile more.” I used to get that. No one who knows me would be so dumb as to say it to me now. If I feel like smiling, I’ll smile. If I don’t feel like smiling, I won’t smile. Why do people care if women smile? They don’t care if men walk around smiling.I would say that for me, personally, this has been the hardest one to deal with. Eventually, I just said fuck it and decided to be myself. I am a nice person, until I am not. And if I am not, you earned itPeople keep questioning this. There are studies folks. Start with this one. https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/research/ktag/resources/papers/crawford.pdfTaken SeriouslyIt can be hard for some women to be taken seriously. There is a lot of sexism in our profession. I have to tell you, this hasn’t been too much of an issue for me. But I know it is an issue for a lot of women. Maybe they are smiling too much and they look like imbeciles. Because, you know, women are supposed to smile. (I am joking.)You Must be a SecretaryAnother issue women face is being recognized as lawyers. Frequently, people will assume women lawyers are paralegals, secretaries, court reporters, and so on. Everything but a lawyer.ClothesDress is an issue. Finding the right way to dress is critical. Dress in a way some people consider too provocative? You are a slut and trying to use your body to get an advantage. Dress in pant suits? In some states, the judges will literally kick you out of court.Not really care about fashion? Men can get away with that. Women? Not so much. I don’t care about fashion. When you are round and short it is hard to care about it. If I could wear the same design of pants suit every day, I would. Male lawyers can do that. Women lawyers? No way. Once, on a WIP listserv, women vented on this issue for a week straight. This happened because a male judge wrote an article on how women should dress for court. And it was very sexist. This jurist was distracted by a woman’s breasts. Or should I call them boobies. Cause the judge was sure a boob. The woman wasn’t dressed inappropriately. Some women just have large breasts. It really isn’t our fault if you cannot handle that we have body parts. I never intentionally show off my breasts. My breasts are always covered. I still have men staring at them.The Men Have to Have a SayIn the past week, I have had this happen twice. One involved a survey being done by a college. The people doing the study want to know what sort of things female lawyers are encountering in the profession in their efforts to attain leadership positions. They wanted the perspective of women lawyers. Another one involves a book. The book is about mom lawyers.In the first one, a man wanted to know why they don’t want to know what men think. Even when it isn’t about them. In the other, a man wanted there to be a chapter on dad lawyers.I believe that the male opinion is valuable. I believe that dad lawyers have as many issues as mom lawyers. But things have been all man for a very, very long time.It is ok to ask women what they think. It is also ok to ask men what they think. Men do not always need to be heard from on issues that are specifically about women. Perhaps we should ask women about the issues men have with their clothing as far as their penises fitting comfortably. I am sure my opinion would be very useful on that subject. (Yes, I am joking.)I was a2a this question, because I am a female lawyer. To be frank, my opinion on what female lawyers run into is more valuable than what a man thinks. Because I am a woman. And I am a lawyer. Male lawyers are missing an essential component required to provide a personal answer to the question.But try to just ask a woman her opinion without men butting in, and you will get exactly what I encountered. The men cannot be quiet and let us talk for once. It won’t hurt, and their opinions are still getting heard all over the place. (Note, men, I am not saying you cannot offer an opinion on this post.)This is a big problem in the legal profession. I cannot tell you how many continuing education seminars I have seen that include no women at all. Even worse, I cannot tell you the number of panels I have seen specifically involving women in the profession, with no women on the panel. And to that I say, WTAF?BullyingThere are a lot of bullies in the legal profession. Both men and women who think that if they act badly enough they will get their way. I see more men like this than women. And these men seem to think that because I am a woman I will be weak and fold if they are obnoxious enough. I don’t know if they act this way with men too, but I am guessing not. I think it comes from a sexist notion that women will not be strong. Yeah, screw that nonsense and see the part about me being nice, until I am not.I am sure I will think of more. This will be a start. I will add to it.Not surprisingly, people are already coming out of the woodwork proving some of my points. I don't mind polite opinions. If you are obnoxious, you will be blocked and reported. So don't bother.

The innocence movement has revealed hundreds of wrongful convictions for serious offenses. But the scale of misdemeanor wrongful conviction is even greater. This is in part because the misdemeanor system is so large, and in part because it goes so fast. Judges, prosecutors, and public defenders are all under professional pressure to clear large caseloads. Defendants face enormous pressures to plead guilty. Rarely is the evidence checked, or legal issues examined. This is a recipe for wrongful conviction. Chapter 4 of my book Punishment Without Crime is entitled “Innocence”: it documents and explores this widespread problem.For many defendants, pleading guilty can seem to be in their best immediate interests, even if they are innocent. People who are incarcerated pretrial and cannot afford bail will often spend more time in jail, waiting for a court date, than they would receive if they were sentenced right away. If you have children or might lose your job, it could make sense to take a guilty plea as quickly as possible in order to get out, even if you did not commit the crime.Many defendants will not have full information about their cases. Some will not have a lawyer at all, even though they may be constitutionally entitled to one. Others will be represented by public defenders who often carry misdemeanor caseloads in the hundreds or even thousands of cases, in violation of American Bar Association standards. Such overburdened attorneys may have only minutes to meet their clients and inform them about the deal offered by the prosecutor, a practice that has been given the derogatory nickname “meet ‘em and plead ‘em” lawyering.Because misdemeanors are perceived as unimportant, defendants may not appreciate the full consequences of pleading guilty to low level crimes they did not commit. They may accept a sentence of probation or a fine as a way of escaping further incarceration without realizing that they may be risking their job, government benefits, or credit rating for years to come.There are many types of low-level offenses that pose a risk of wrongful conviction. Drug arrests may be based on unreliable field drug tests. Order maintenance arrests for crimes like loitering, trespassing, or disorderly conduct are often made based on weak evidence. People are frequently charged with such crimes even when they have not actually possessed illegal drugs, loitered, or trespassed.Wrongful convictions are inherently invisible. They represent the breakdown of the system for determining guilt and innocence, so they are often impossible to determine after the fact. But given the size, speed, and sloppiness of the misdemeanor system, it is likely that wrongful misdemeanor convictions occur thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of times every year.

Time to consult a lawyer. Your local American Bar Association chapter should be able to help you find one with first consult free.