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From the President January 2010 With Equal Right Early in 2009, MWL undertook a strategic planning process to confirm its mission and to outline its future goals. Through that process, we modified our mission statement to be a more active expression of our intent as an organization, confirming in no uncertain terms that our guiding purpose is to advance the success of women in the legal profession and to strive for a just society. Since then, the Board of Directors adopted the strategic plan at its July meeting, and MWL has continued to act through its committees, taskforces, board, and leadership meetings to define and give effect to this mission statement. Through that process, we are examining at all levels how MWL supports the advancement of women and takes action within the legal community toward that objective. Part of advancing women is ensuring that they have opportunities to develop the competencies that will help them to succeed. MWL has historically offered many opportunities to women to build competencies through its mentorship programs, dynamic programming, and leadership development roles. But I believe that MWL can grow further to become a definitive resource for women to develop the skills and confidence that will advance them in their careers, whether they aspire to become judges, managing partners, general counsels, elected officials, or other leaders within our community.
And we must become this resource
because in the legal profession we lag behind our male colleagues at every
level. The recently released White House Project Report concluded that
in the profession of law: “the line
tracking women’s share of leadership roles follows a straighter downward
When examining women in the judiciary, the White House Project Report also noted that only one in four judges are women.[2] The White House Project Report concludes that we must create a critical mass of women in top leadership positions, because research demonstrates that their absence has a negative influence on the future advancement of women at the lower tiers.[3] As affirmed by our new mission statement, MWL’s role is to advance the success of women in the legal profession. Consistent with this mission and the recommendation of the White House Project Report, I believe that we can do so through actions that support creating more women leaders. In striving for this goal, we must foster new initiatives, evaluate the success of our current actions, and in some instances re-envision how we can advance women in this profession. Our implementation of the strategic plan has already resulted in change. We have increased the focus of our programming in 2010 on enhancing the development of leadership competencies. Among its other development programming, the MWL Professional Development Committee will launch the new She Said series, sponsoring panel discussions lead by experienced women practitioners on such topics as leadership steps and everyday mentoring. These panel discussions will provide women attorneys with opportunities to dialog with others and to learn from their examples. Another area of change has been MWL’s role in judicial appointments and elections. Recently, the MWL Board of Directors considered the recommendations from the Judicial Committees Taskforce and voted to change the organization’s focus regarding judicial candidates and voter outreach. Specifically, the Board of Directors voted to:
These changes shift the focus of MWL’s efforts to the development of qualified women candidates for the judiciary, rather than assessing their qualifications once they have become candidates for judicial office. By creating a pipeline for women in this area, we will undoubtedly increase the number of viable women candidates for both judicial appointments and elections and advance our numbers on the bench. As we move forward, our efforts will build on the work of the many dedicated volunteers that have served on these committees over the years. For this reason, the Board of Directors also voted to commend the judicial committees on their past service. In addition to these recent changes, a number of taskforces have been formed to look at other specific aspects of the Strategic Plan and to make recommendations:
· Networking Taskforce lead by Kristin Haugen and Evon Spangler will identify how MWL can provide opportunities for effective networking to help women lawyers grow their professional connections. · Research Taskforce lead by Amy Tabor and Kate Westad will determine how MWL can become a resource for information on the status of women in the legal profession so that we can use the information to eliminate barriers and advocate for change. But these efforts are just
the beginning. If we are to truly fulfill the promise of our mission statement,
we cannot stop here. Additional efforts must occur to advance the success of
women in all areas of the profession and to create that critical mass of women
in leadership positions. I look forward to the future recommendations from the
current taskforces and the ongoing activities of MWL’s committees that will
build on these past efforts and envision new endeavors.
[1] The White House Project Report: Benchmarking Women’s Leadership at 60 (Nov. 2009), available at <www.benchmarks.thewhitehouseproject.org>. The White House Project Report also examined the professional sectors of academia, business, film & television, journalism, military, non-profit, politics, religion, and sports. Of the nine other sectors, the legal profession ranked last in the advancement of women. [2] Id. at 62 (specifically citing the following percentages: State Final Appellate Jurisdiction Courts, 29 percent; State Intermediate Appellate Jurisdiction Courts, 30 percent; State General Jurisdiction Courts, 23 percent; State Limited and Special Jurisdiction Courts, 29 percent). [3] Id. at 64. --------
Megan J. Hertzler's Bio
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