Women In Big Law: Progress, Challenges And The Road Ahead

In this article, Sophia Cahill and Danielle Vrabie compare the modern-day state of affairs for women litigators in big law and what remains true based upon former Chief Judge Judith Ann Kaye's 1988 lecture on the same topic.

Long before the days of videoconferences and virtual hearings, attorneys were filling courthouses across the state daily, catching up with colleagues, making last-minute preparations for oral argument or brokering eleventh-hour settlements with opposing counsel. Less visible were the women litigators quietly counting to themselves on one hand the number of women assembled and not bothering to count the men who outnumbered them.

While many things have changed since the days of crowded courthouses, this disparity persists. Of the more than 50 attendees present at a recent mediation, only 13 were women—less than 25%—emblematic of the gender gap that persists in the legal industry even as everything else changes.