Women see the value of networking

Jenner & Block associates Grace S. Ho and Erinn L. Wehrman, and partners E. Lynn Grayson and Michelle M. McAtee attend a Jenner & Block Women’s Forum networking reception. (Photo by Craig R. Skorburg)

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Female lawyers need to support one another, and work together to break down barriers, said Deni Caplan, a principal and chair of the corporate, securities, and tax group at Goldberg Kohn. Networking helps women earn leadership roles, Caplan said.

An organization asked her many years ago to prepare a women’s networking event at a hockey game. But she said she didn’t feel that type of event would attract the greatest number of women. She and three other female partners brainstormed better ideas.

They pulled together some commonalities that women have, such as their desire to multi-task, and to participate in learning and charitable activities. They used these characteristics to create a women’s networking group within the firm called Engage.

Each of the group’s events has a networking, charitable, and educational component, Caplan said.

”I think networking is a bigger, more important part of every professional’s life,” Caplan said. ”I think there are still some barriers to women being considered when networking opportunities come up that we need to continue to work through.”

Working together
Nicole Nehama Auerbach and Tara Kamradt started Katten Muchin Rosenman’s women’s initiative in 2004. Over the years they discovered that women shared the same issues and questions as they attempted to build their firms’ women’s groups.

Auerbach, now a commercial litigator at Valorem Law Group, said they believed law firms could benefit from sharing information about their women’s initiatives. They decided it would be beneficial to get those women who lead these initiatives together.

They hosted, in March 2007, a breakfast meeting with female representatives from as many law firms as possible, she said.

The interest expressed at that meeting led to the creation of the Coalition of Women’s Initiatives in Law Firms — a group of women from 30 law firms with offices in Chicago, she said.

The coalition provides a forum for communicating ideas and brainstorming greater ways to bring about change in the legal community. The group, which represents law firms of all sizes, also works with other women’s legal organizations.

It wants to help each firm enhance its recruitment, retention, and promotion of women lawyers, and supports the building, implementation, and continued relevancy of women’s initiatives in law firms.

”When you realize that you are not alone and there are other people out there that you can reach out to and talk with, that is just very helpful,” said Marie Lona, a Winston & Strawn partner and member of the coalition’s steering committee. ”And then we can collectively get together, and share our wisdom as to what we are doing at our individual firms — what has worked really well and what hasn’t worked,” she said. ”[We can] pull our knowledge together on speakers and resources so that we can collectively, as women lawyers, help all of us, no matter what firm we’re in, succeed to partnership and probably more importantly, leadership roles.”

Lona said the coalition provides female lawyers with the type of collaboration they cannot always find in their individual firms.

”Men easily are able to network within their own firms without even a thought because there are much more of them than there are of us,” she said. ”I think that makes it more important for us to reach out to everyone within the community, as opposed to just within the firm, so that we get those same benefits. We can’t get that with the numbers that we have within our individual firms.”

Leslee M. Cohen, a principal at Much Shelist and a member of the coalition’s steering committee, said the coalition can help women’s initiatives share information and consider what the next step should be within their firms.

”Men tend to talk business as a regular topic,” Cohen said. ”I will go out with my husband and another couple on a Saturday night and the men are talking business. The women don’t tend to do that, and a lot of women you go out with don’t work. It’s just not a natural topic.

”When you put women together in networking circles, we’re all there knowing that we want to help each other, we want to share business, we want to promote each other in a professional capacity, and it makes it much more comfortable to have those conversations.”

Kamradt, a partner at Katten, said the coalition provides an opportunity for change because it brings together women attorneys who want to make a difference, and want to succeed to leadership positions.

”My hope is that in 15 years there will not be a need for women’s initiatives in law firms because what I am starting to see happen, at least at Katten, is the women’s initiative is raising issues that affect everybody,” she said.

”The things we are addressing as a women’s initiative should be addressed firm-wide. These professional development issues, retention issues, firm training issues affect everybody, whether it’s the white male or the African-American … Hopefully, in the future, firms will really be able to close that gap so that the investment made by firms in professional development is experienced by everyone on an equal basis.”

Auerbach hopes the coalition will help future female lawyers, and provide opportunities for female lawyers to influence change, suggest ideas and affect policy.

”We have come an amazingly long way, and we are on this warp speed to make change and to continue to solidify the change that has been made to date,” she said. ”Obviously there is work to be done. My feeling is, it is a great time for women in law firms.”

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