Women and Business Law: Opportunities, Challenges and Solutions

The Glass Wall Between Women and Business Law: Challenges

The under-representation of women in business law gives the impression that a glass wall stands between them and career opportunities in the field, as a number of intangible factors appear to hinder their progress. The following hypotheses aim to make the wall more tangible.

Lack of positive role models
The fact that this invisible barrier has been in place for many years in business law has contributed to a vicious circle. As a result, positive role models for women in the profession are becoming more rare. This deficiency can affect both the decision to pursue a career in business law and the desire to remain in it, since positive role models serve as an inspiration both for getting started and for persevering when confronted with obstacles. When things get tough and self-doubt sets in, a like-minded role model who has experienced similar difficulties and succeeded, or a colleague who can be counted on for mutual support and solidarity, can make the difference between persevering and giving up.

Limited opportunities for informal influence
Given that women still face specific obstacles in the field of business law—as in many other fields—when it comes to networking and opportunities for influence, positive female role models play an even more important role. In fact, in interviews with women working in the field over the past five years, this point has been brought up many times—upon condition of anonymity. The feeling that “boys’ clubs” still exist and continue to exclude women from informal networks of influence has been mentioned often. “Just because women play golf, and just because there are co-ed bathrooms, doesn’t mean that male cliques have ceased to exist,” said one business law professional who was interviewed in 2022 as part of a firm’s organizational climate diagnosis. In addition, telecommuting, which has become increasingly popular since the start of the pandemic, could also have more harmful consequences for women than for men. While people of all genders appreciate telecommuting for its flexibility and work-life balance, it can also cut remote workers off from the informal opportunities for influence that occur in office doorways or at the coffee machine. If we assume that in employment law, as in the labour force in general, men have fewer personal and family burdens than their female colleagues, they may be more likely than women to report to the office. If so, we should be concerned about the impact such an imbalance in physical presence could have on women’s access to opportunities for influence, learning, and spontaneous assignments to stimulating projects during informal office discussions.

A feeling of inequity
Beyond feeling cut off from certain informal centres of influence, many women complain of a lack of transparency, objectivity, and recognition of their contributions beyond billable hours or other equivalent indicators, resulting in an unpleasant sense of pay inequity. In fact, when we looked at data published by the Quebec Bar in 2022, we noted a significant gap between female lawyers and their male counterparts, both in terms of average salary and in the proportion of lawyers earning more than $110,000, which is only 37% among female lawyers, while it is 50% among men. The fact that women are less likely to hold leadership positions, that they are more likely to put hours into the organization that are not measured in quantitative results, and that they are less likely to fight for higher wages for fear of being perceived badly, are all possible explanations for this phenomenon.

Daily biases, prejudices and aggressions
Women in business law face many biases and prejudices. These include being questioned, either implicitly or (often) explicitly, on their ability to reconcile their personal and professional responsibilities. Even though men now take an increasingly active role in household and family responsibilities, several studies have shown that women have to juggle more of the mental load and challenges of work-life balance. Female lawyers at the Quebec Bar make up 98% of the members on parental leave. For this reason, there can be a hesitancy to offer jobs or promotions to women, regardless of their abilities or their specific situations, whereas men in similar situations are not necessarily challenged in the same way. This is another source of frustration and inequity. Beyond being questioned about work-life balance, women also experience regular bias and prejudice in the form of microaggressions, including inappropriate comments or jokes, such as, “You’re pregnant again? You’re going to have to leave business law for family law!” or “You’re pushing hard for your client, you’ve got big balls for a woman.” Even when uttered in a humorous or well-intentioned manner, these offensive phrases contribute to a culture of prejudice and exclusion of women in business law, as well as in many other fields. (It is important to remember that although it is invisible, the glass wall is experienced in all spheres of work.) Although the current social trend is to trivialize the effects of these types of daily aggressions, it is important to realize that just because a woman laughs at a joke or feigns indifference does not mean the comments are without impact. Women often choose to react in this way to avoid being further excluded for being perceived as taking things too personally. If we hope to break down the barriers that restrict women’s access to the profession, we must stop passively accepting such inappropriate gestures and comments as a normal part of our culture.