The Commission on Women in the Profession publishes books, reports, and other content. Take a look at our groundbreaking research and career guidance for women in the law.
Perspectives
Get a fresh, innovative angle on the issues that are important and relevant to women in the legal profession by subscribing to Perspectives, the magazine for and about women lawyers.
ABA women members can receive Perspectives in an electronic format at no additional cost.
Legal Careers of Parents and Child Caregivers: Results and Best Practices from a National Study of the Legal Profession
It’s past time to flip the narrative. This essential and timely report reveals the prevalence and impact of parenting and child caregiving on legal professionals.
how and why the everyday work experiences of women lawyers with children differ from men with children.
Leveraging Grit and Growth Mindset to Drive Team Success - This new Commission on Women report builds upon the original Grit and Growth Mindset research. It focuses on steps that team leaders and members can take to increase a gritty, growth mindset. Research has shown that team experiences greatly influence job satisfaction, and adopting gritty and growth mindset-oriented behaviors on teams can reduce the number of negative experiences and increase team experiences. Given the challenges posed by the Great Resignation, where women lawyers left jobs in droves, we are confident that this report will be quite educational and valuable.
Authored by social scientist Destiny Peery, past ABA president Paulette Brown and Chicago attorney Eileen Letts, the report shows that women lawyers of color surveyed were far more likely to want to leave the profession than their white colleagues; were more likely to be subjected to both implicit and explicit bias; and to report factors that blocked their “access to success,” including access to business development opportunities and being denied or overlooked for promotion.
The first research report to be released through the Initiative on Long-Term Careers for Women in Law, "Walking out the Door" distills the data on why experienced women lawyers leave BigLaw, and what their firms can do to retain them.
The groundbreaking report "You Can't Change What You Can't See: Interrupting Racial & Gender Bias in the Legal Profession" was published in collaboration with MCCA in 2018. The report reveals the various biases that women lawyers of color and white women lawyers experience in the profession, providing recommendations to legal employers for removing institutionalized and systemic barriers to women lawyers' success.
How Unappealing: an Empirical Analysis of the Gender Gap among Appellate Attorneys
This report analyzes the number of men and women who appeared before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in two years a decade apart, showing that lawyers who are men outnumbered lawyers who are women nearly three to one. The report also examines who those women lawyers were—what kinds of cases they worked on, who they represented and where they worked.
First Chairs at Trial: More Women Need Seats at the Table
This is a first-of-its-kind empirical study of the participation of women and men as lead counsel and trial attorneys in civil and criminal litigation. Using a random sample of all cases filed in 2013 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, this report also identifies characteristics of cases, law firms, and clients that impact the extent to which men and women serve in lead counsel roles.
From Visible Invisibility to Visibly Successful: Success Strategies for Law Firms and Women of Color in Law Firms
Find information, insights, and advice gathered from women of color partners in law firms as well as an examination of law firm practices that contributed to their success.
Visible Invisibility: Women of Color in Fortune 500 Legal Departments
The Commission on Women has analyzed the results of its survey of diversity dynamics in Fortune 500 corporate legal departments. This report focuses on the experiences of women attorneys, particularly women of color, as they go through the four major aspects of an attorney's career: recruitment, hiring, retention, and advancement.