by Karen Kahn

I have been sitting with the NAWL Annual Survey for a week now and, like most of you, been absorbed by the fact that there is still no significant progress in the advancement of women in terms of their success as individuals (when compared to men) or their trajectory up the power ranks in their firms. As a national consultant who speaks with many firms on issues related to women, the lack of movement is somewhat perplexing, as I know that several actions are occurring across most firms:

1. There are formal groups of women that plan events to bring women within the firm together and, usually, create events to foster relationships between women in the firm and firm clients.
2. Firms are aware of various data points that reflect how their women are doing, seen through their answering of many surveys [interesting to note that many firms would not report data about the compensation of their lawyers, which is an interesting point to ponder].
3. Many, if not most, firms have committees, on which senior male partners are members, that focus on the retention, promotion and advancement of women.

The above activities tell me that conversation and planning is happening, however, it is clearly not the kind of conversations and planning that are reaping progress.

I suggest that leaders of committees focused on advancing women intensify the questions that they ask of firm leadership; that they move one degree higher on the “provocative scale”; and challenge anticipated responses that are akin to “this is the way we do things,” knowing that actions that are consistent with the status quo are unlikely to advance the needle of change.

Here are some courageous questions that are aligned with several of the NAWL findings (stated in bold):

Finding: There continues to be a disproportionately low number of women who advance into the highest ranks of law firms.

Question: Under what circumstances would the firm be amenable to identifying qualified women to move into the highest ranks of law firm leadership and invest in them, if needed, so that they deliver high-impact service to the firm in those positions? (It is time to move away from ranking quantity of business development as the most important qualification for 21^st century firm leadership.)

Finding: The gender composition of law firm governing and compensation committees impacts the extent of the gender pay gap within a firm.

Question: Would it be agreeable to you [firm leaders] to set a goal of having at least two women on the law firm governing AND compensation committees within the next two years? What steps [concrete ones] need to be put in place to accomplish this goal?

Finding: 44% of firms identified business development as one of the greatest obstacles to increasing the number of women equity partners.

Question: Given the fact that the firm wants to increase its revenues and women income partners seem to generate less business development than their male counterparts, it makes sense that increasing the amount of business generated by women would accomplish many goals: an increase in firm revenue, an increase in women equity partners, an increase in the number of women succeeding monetarily. Given this win-win-win combination, what do we need to do to make a significant investment to women’s business development?

Business Development guru Neil Rackman encourages sales people to end each conversation with an advance, or “an action that moves you toward the sale.” This approach eliminates discussions marked by vague or even no outcomes. It is imperative that individuals advocating to elevate the progress of women in their firms construct conversations with their leadership in a fashion the yields concrete advances, Rackman style. Utilizing powerful, goal-oriented questions connected to establish data such as the NAWL survey can navigate critical conversations in the direction of important actions and changes.