The Woman Advocate

    Audio

    Learn while you’re on the go. Listen to the Woman Advocate Committee’s audio recordings on this archive page.

    Sound Advice

    Privacy Law: How to Get Involved in the Area and Issues on the Horizon
    By Bridget Warren & Erin Illman – May 30, 2019
    In this Sound Advice, Erin Illman, a Board Certified Specialist in Privacy & Information Security Law, discusses how she got involved in this area of the law, the issues businesses face in this area, and how others can get more involved.

    Spotting and Overcoming Gender Bias in the Workplace
    By Lindsay Breedlove and Bridget Warren – November 13, 2018
    Lindsay Breedlove and Bridget Warren discuss behaviors that disproportionately affect women, how to spot gender bias, and what women can do to overcome gender bias. (10:45 min)

    Cross-Examining Expert Witnesses
    By Miranda Lundeen Soto – March 13, 2018
    This Sound Advice discusses how to effectively cross-examine an expert witness, ways to tell a story through cross-examination, and how to handle objections.

    Advice for Young Lawyers about Working With and Learning from Lawyers Within Your Firm – Part I
    This is the first in a two-part series. Stewart’s talk provides some helpful and practical tips about how to get the most out of your relationships with lawyers inside your firm, including mentors, peers and senior counsel. 

    Advice for Young Lawyers about Working With and Learning from Lawyers Within Your Firm – Part II
    This is the second in a two-part series. Stewart’s talk provides useful tips about how to get the most out of your dealings with lawyers outside your firm, including: opposing counsel, in-house counsel, former classmates, and fellow members of local, state and national bar associations.

    Mentors vs. Sponsors
    By LaKeisha Randall
    Having a successful career is often achieved with the help of others. Listen as LaKeisha Randall discusses that while mentors are useful, having a sponsor is your best option for advancing your career. (8:22 min.)

    Dealing with Difficult Witnesses
    Listen as Anne Marie Seibel outlines various types of difficult witnesses that you may encounter, followed by specific advice for how to best deal with each of them by assessing their personality types.

    10 Lessons from the 50 Yard Line
    By Shayna M. Steinfeld
    Trying to balance work and home is a challenge for all professionals. Hear Shayna Steinfeld’s “Ten Lessons from the 50 Yard Line” for suggestions on how to improve your life at home thus leading to a better life in the office. (14:57 min.)

    Work-Life Management
    By Teresa Beck
    Multitasking is a concept we are all familiar with, but it is often too difficult to actually work in our lives. Listen as Teresa Beck offers tips and practices to help you develop or maintain a healthy balance for your life. (12:11 min.)

    Practical Tips and Guidance for Protecting Attorney-Client Privilege
    By Elizabeth Timkovich
    A high-level primer on what types of documents and communications merit privilege to make sure you're asserting privilege over the right types of information and not over- or under-designating any of your documents as privileged. (15:57)

    Balancing Work and Home
    Being an attorney is a full time job. Being a parent is also a full time job. Listen as Danielle Kays offers 10 tips on how to be successful at both. (14:38 min.)

    Jury Selection—Have Some Faith
    Lucia Coyoca describes her experiences with juries in complex business litigation cases. (10:23 min.)

    Mentoring Circles for Women Lawyers
    By Louise A. LaMothe
    Mentoring Circles for Women can be easier and more rewarding than one on one mentoring for professional development.  Hear Former Chair of the Section of Litigation, Louise LaMothe, currently a practicing arbitrator and a mediator in Santa Barbara, California, describe six years of working with Mentoring Circles:  who should join, how the Circles should be conducted, and what the benefits are for both young and experienced lawyers alike.

    Roundtables

    Effective Legal Writing Tips
    Effective legal writing is essential to helping a court decide a case in your client's favor. It is therefore crucial to master techniques for organizing your brief and presenting your arguments to maximize your opportunity to achieve a favorable outcome.

    This program, presented by Katherine Reilly of McMillan LLP and Christopher Soper, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and Director of Legal Writing at the University of Minnesota, will offer practical tips and best practices about how to draft briefs and all other legal writings efficiently, effectively communicate your written advocacy to the court, and generally enhance your legal writing. Moderated by Demetrius D. Pyburn, Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd. (59:55 min.)

    Her Story Third Thursday Roundtable Series: Building Endurance: Going the Distance: Maintaining Perspective Throughout the Journey
    By The Woman Advocate Committee
    This Roundtable will address the big picture. Panelists will be looking at the advances that women have made in the profession, and where and how they have made those advances. We will be looking at strategies that attorneys can take throughout their careers to reassess and reposition the direction of their careers to accommodate the successes and challenges that arise. With the average legal career exceeding 30 or more years, taking the long view is important. (1:00:58 min)

    Her Story Third Thursday Roundtable Series: Building Endurance: Getting Back Up: Managing Crises Along the Journey
    By The Woman Advocate Committee
    This Roundtable will address the importance of resilience and fortitude in a legal career. When personal and professional challenges arise, as inevitably will happen, it is important to address them head on and know that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. Those challenges may be personal or physical, such as recovering from alcoholism or drug abuse, or recovering from a brain tumor. Or they may involve dealing with a sick or disabled child or parent, making it impossible to meet deadlines or billable hour requirements. Panelists will provide insight into these issues, discussing their own careers and experiences, and dealing with the unexpected. (51:59 min)

    Her Story Third Thursday Roundtable Series: Building Endurance: Life Lessons and Big Picture Strategies for Achieving Long-Term Success
    By The Woman Advocate Committee
    This Roundtable addresses short- and long-term time management ideas for attorneys. Whether a solo practitioner who must find time to manage the firm’s administrative work, a law firm partner, or a federal judge, successful attorneys develop routines and strategies for managing their workloads. Panelists will discuss making time for what matters—both professionally and personally and the importance of healthy life styles. Attorneys are more likely be successful in the long run if they find ways to take care of their health and well-being on a regular basis. Panelists will address how to best plan your schedules to make the best of the time you have, as well as the spiritual side of work-life management. (1:03:02 min.)

    Her Story Third Thursday Roundtable Series: Gaining Momentum: Strategies for Success in Career Planning, Rainmaking, Salary Negotiation, and Developing Grit
    This Roundtable addresses strategies for career advancement, to include early career planning, networking and rainmaking, and salary negotiation. Panelists also talk about gender in the work place, as well as how sponsorship by a man or women is a key to achieving success. The program highlights the importance of “grit” and moving forward to overcome challenges as they arise. (56:08 min.)

    Her Story Third Thursday Roundtable Series: Preparing for the Long Road Ahead: Redefining Balancing Versus Managing and Developing a Plan for Success
    The next installment in the Her Story Third Thursday Roundtable Series. (51:48 min.)

    Career Management Matters: The Case for Fostering Work-Life Balance among Employees
    By The Woman Advocate Committee
    The next installment in the Her Story Third Thursday Roundtable Series. (59:35 min)

    Her Story Third Thursday Roundtable Series: Going the Distance: Maintaining Perspective Throughout the Journey
    By Robin Frazer Clark, Stasia Kelly, Ellen Rosenblum, Lauren Rikleen, and Bobby Liebenberg
    This fourth installment examines how to merge family commitments with career and how to set priorities when juggling the two.

    Making Your Value Known: Effective Self Promotion for Women
    By The Woman Advocate Committee
    Learn about the importance of self-promotion, the effect of gender differences in self-promotion, the particular challenges that women and minorities face, and practical tips to overcome them. Hailyn Chen, a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, will share the latest research on self-promotion and its key role in women’s career advancement. She’ll provide practical tips from her own and others’ experiences on firm compensation and hiring committees and lead the roundtable through an interactive group exercise to practice self-promotion. The roundtable will address scenarios faced by both younger and more senior attorneys, in contexts such as attorney evaluations, promotion to partnership, and compensation negotiation.

    A View From In-house Counsel: The Do’s and Don’ts of How to Get and Keep Their Business
    By the Business Torts and Unfair Competition Committee and Co-sponsored by the Woman Advocate Committee
    Three in-house counsel and a business development coach share their experiences with working with outside counsel looking to build their business. The discussion will focus on strategies related to how to: develop new business, keep the business you have, and provide value to your clients which could result in more matters and referrals. Please join us for this "tell it like it is" frank discussion regarding business development strategies.

    Closing the Gap: Steps to Achieve Gender Pay Equity in Law Firm Compensation
    By The Woman Advocate Committee
    Listen to Roberta D. Liebenberg and Stephanie A. Scharf discuss specific strategies and solutions for addressing and eliminating long-standing pay disparity in compensation between male and female attorneys practicing in law firms. Featured Speakers: Ms. Liebenberg, a senior partner at Fine Kaplan and Black in Philadelphia, serves as the Chair of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession and was past Chair of the ABA Gender Equity Task Force. In January 2013, she was the recipient of the inaugural Chambers Women in Law Award for "Outstanding Contributions to Gender Diversity and Equality." Ms. Scharf, a founding partner of Scharf Banks Marmor LLC in Chicago, IL, serves as Commissioner of the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession and serves cochair of the Compensation Committee of the ABA's Task Force on Gender Equality.

    Yes—Lawyers Can Do Tech!
    By The Woman Advocate Committee
    Tuesday, May 14, 2013, at 12:00–1:00 p.m. Eastern Lawyers have a rap for being technology phobic—yet in today’s world, the lawyers who succeed will be the lawyers who use technology to be better, faster, smarter and more agile. In truth, avoiding technology could hold you back in your career, especially for litigators. Technology is everywhere and it’s not going away, so we need to get over it. Submit your top 3 tech questions or frustrations and join data management experts (and attorneys) to learn some tips for overcoming technology fears and frustrations, so you too can learn what you need to know to impress your clients and build your practice.