• IWL Annual Meeting: March 16, 2010 at 5:30 p.m. at Cafe Ole in BoDo
• Summer Networking: July 2010 (bring your summer clerks for cocktails and networking with IWL members)
• IWL Board Meeting Planning Retreat: September 2010

The Board of Commissioners is the elected governing body of the Bar. The Board consists of five commissioners, elected from Idaho’s seven judicial districts. Two commissioners are elected from the Fourth District, one represents the First and Second Districts, one the Third and Fifth Districts and one the Sixth and Seventh Districts. Commissioners serve staggered three-year terms. Both the First and Fourth Districts will have openings this year. The election is fast approaching. Currently, IWL member Deborah Ferguson is the only woman on the Board. If you or someone you know are interested in learning more about this role, Deborah Ferguson has graciously offered to discuss her experiences. You can contact her at Deborah.Ferguson@usdoj.gov. Petitions for the position will be distributed by the bar in March and are due the first Tuesday in April (April 6, 2010). For more details about the Board of Commissioners and the requirements for running for this position, please see the Idaho Bar Commission Rules http://isb.idaho.gov/general/rules/ibcr.html.

Each year, the Idaho State Bar selects an attorney or attorneys to receive the distinguished lawyer award. The award is presented to attorneys who have “distinguished the profession through exemplary conduct and many years of dedicated service to the profession and to Idaho citizens.” Only two women have ever received the award, Mary Smith Oldham (posthumously) and Linda Judd. Please consider making a nomination for this year’s awards, which will be presented at the Idaho State Bar annual meeting in Idaho Falls, July 14-16, 2010. Nomination forms and deadlines are typically published in the March issue of the Advocate.

Be sure to read Idaho Legal History Society’s recent newsletter with a great article about Helen Young, the first woman admitted to practice law in Idaho.

View Article Here.

Idaho Power Company is currently seeking a Paralegal to provide general legal support for our Smart Grid Project funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Smart Grid Investment Grant (SGIG). The successful candidate will Perform a variety of complex law-related tasks, including: the creation and review of government contracts; participation in negotiations; risk mitigation and support for issue resolution. May conduct legal research, draft legal and business communications, prepare other legal documents, and assist in document management and compliance tracking.

Deadline to apply is 12/22/09. For a complete job description and requirements and to apply on-line, please visit us at www.idahopower.com/careers or contact our recruiting team at 388-2965. Idaho Power Company is an equal opportunity employer.

There are no listings at this time.

Click here to view the letter: iwl-to-otter-re-wiebe-appointment

For more than a year, Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress spearheaded research about the way Americans live and work.  The resulting comprehensive Shriver Report, http://awomansnation.com, released earlier this month, found that for the first time in our nation’s history, women make up half of the workforce and mothers are the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of American families.  The website showcasing the report boldly touts, “The battle of the sexes is over.  Men and women overwhelmingly agree on what they want in life, and how they view their roles in marriage, as parents, and in their jobs.”

Just a week after the Shriver Report’s release, Joanne Lipman reacted with a rather frank and insightful New York Times Op-Ed piece, “The Mismeasure of Woman”, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/opinion/24lipman.html.  Ms. Lipman takes issue with the suggestion that we are now living in a woman’s world because, as she sees it, progress for women has stalled and even taken a step backward in recent years.  After citing a litany of examples (women still earn 77 cents for each dollar earned by a man, only 15 women run Fortune 500 companies, women make up almost half of all associates but only 18.3% of the partners in law firms), she explores why this has happened. 

Ms. Lipman traces the root of the decline to the aftermath of 9/11.  She contends that, as the “war in Iraq tore America apart” and the “Internet gave everyone a soapbox” in which the “louder, the more offensive the better”, the online and then mainstream conversation about women degenerated.  She backs up this accusation with several examples - examples which, admittedly, I am shocked by, now that I see them assembled in print, but which I very well wouldn’t have even noticed hearing them live.  What this all reveals, Ms. Lipman concludes, is that while the numbers might have improved, the attitudes have not.

Perhaps Ms. Lipman’s comments offer some new insight into the questions that IWL (along with numerous other organizations and commentators) has been exploring for the last several years.  Questions like, why are there so few women judges, equity partners, rainmakers, Bar Commissioners, etc.?  For decades, women attorneys have made up a significant portion of the legal workforce, yet they occupy a much smaller fraction of the positions at the top of the legal career path.

 A recent survey by the National Association of Women Lawyers confirms that little to no progress has been made in the last year: “Fourth Annual Survey on Retention and Promotion of Women in Law Firms” http://www.nawl.org/Assets/Documents/2009+Survey.pdf (survey);
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS134533+26-Oct-2009+BW20091026 (article summarizing survey findings). The survey’s findings include:

• Women were much more likely to be affected by recent layoffs because they were more likely to hold part-time jobs;
• Pay disparity between men and women still exists at all levels;
• Few women are significant rainmakers;
• Women are still under-represented in the upper levels of law firms. (”For over 20 years women have graduated from law schools and started careers in private practice at roughly the same rate as men, yet women continue to be markedly under-represented in the leadership ranks of firms. Women constitute fewer than 16% of equity partners, only 6% of firm managing partners, and barely 15% of the members of a firm’s highest governing committee - percentages which have not changed from 2008 and have barely advanced since the Survey began exploring these data in 2006.”)

There are so many partial explanations for this phenomenon, and they all have some legitimacy:  the mommy track; the reluctance of women-versus men-to promote themselves; the catch 22 of too few women leader role models; remaining vestiges of overt discrimination; and others. 

I think we need to add to this list:  our own attitudes toward women.

Have we individually and as a society become numb to demeaning comments about women?  Do we laugh politely when we hear a gender-based criticism of opposing counsel?  Do we unwittingly attribute unfair stereotypes to women attorneys-like indecisive, flighty or bitchy?  Do we subconsciously start with the assumption, barring evidence to the contrary, that a man is more qualified than a woman to be a judge, or Attorney General, or managing partner? 

All of us-men and women-need to carefully examine our own prejudices and vigilantly guard against the casual intrusion of such prejudices (whether ours or others’) into our daily interactions.  This is essential to maintain the integrity of our legal profession.  And, it is essential to eliminate an unseen but ever-present impediment to women attorneys’ leadership track.

Submitted by Deborah Nelson
Member of the Board of Directors, Idaho Women Lawyers, Inc.
Partner, Givens Pursley LLP

Data shows Women Disproportionately Affected by Dismissals of Part-Time Attorneys; Confirm Few Women Among Top Firm Rainmakers.

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS134533+26-Oct-2009+BW20091026