melanie heller_hackathon keynote

7/25/2019 Melanie Heller_Hackathon Keynote

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Like, Im sure all of you, when Caren came to us about this event

we jumped at the chance to be a part of it. Tackling the problems of

women advancing in the legal market is something that needs this kind of

attention, and we at Bloomberg Law are thrilled to be part of this

discussion. I dont need to reiterate the issues at hand the things many

of us have experience, seen at our firms and read about, including in the

Stanford white paper so often mentioned today.

I was so excited and inspired to hear all the amazing and innovative

ideas you have all come up with. They clearly transcend things

attempted in the past, some of which simply gave lip service to the issue,

and have the ability to truly transform the legal sphere. All the ideas

presented were concrete, tactical solutions that we can put in place

immediately, and many of them would apply outside of the legal arena as

well. And each of these ideas embody Carens battle cry less talk, more

action.

But something I want to discuss with you today is what Ill call the

other side of the problem the more overarching, systemic issue. The

fact that the law firm environment simply isnt built to account for the

lives of women the responsibilities that they have outside of the office,

the fact that although the sea is shifting, women still bear responsibility

for most household activities, including taking care of the children, thefact that the years that they are supposed to be working the hardest/

longest often coincide with their childbearing years. The fact that there

is limited flexibility in the way law firms currently deal with situations

many of the solutions dont actually address the real problems. The fact


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that large law firms are often more focused on the short term economic

effects of things, and not focused enough on the long term effects on the

law firm as a whole. The fact that we are still measured by the billable

hour. The fact that we are scared to admit that maybe we need to treat

women differently understand their concerns differently, and come up

with solutions with them in mind.

I believe that even if women can escape some of the problems

detailed in the white paper lack of mentorship, less desirable work

assignments, biased reviews, fewer business development opportunities

they are nonetheless extracting themselves from the workplace for the

overarching reasons just mentioned. They are capable of doing

everything the men can do, they just dont want to make the necessary

sacrifices. They are choosing to leave, because they feel like its not a

career that appreciates their specific needs. If we really want to keep

and advance women in the legal profession, we need to work on the

things identified today, and alsowork to fix the systematic issues that

exist that necessarily disadvantage women.

A recent New York times article written by Judith Shulevitz, titled

How to Fix Feminism says it well. The author wishes that the sacrifices

one makes in ones career in order to spend time raising kids was valued,

rather than looked down upon. True equality will take more than equal

pay and better work conditions. It will require something more radical, a

transvaluation of all values, in Neitzsches phrase.

When I think back to the reasons I decided to leave BigLaw, the

main one was not addressed in the White Paper. I dont have specific

complaints about my experience in BigLaw. I didnt feel overwhelming


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discrimination, and I do feel like opportunities were given to me.

Generally I was given the same opportunities as my male peers, put on

the good deals, etc. At both of my law firms, I had no problem finding

formal and informal mentors, and incidentally my two greatest mentors

were both men, who chose to take me under their wing and train me to

work with their most important clients. I never worried about my path,

and my ability to succeed. My evaluations certainly exhibited some

unconscious bias youre not aggressive enough, youre too nice, etc

but I never felt like those qualities were pushing me off track. Sure, did

I face various levels of discrimination? Was I not invited to a golf event

because it was assumed I dont golf? Was I told I had to be more

aggressive with the other side (even though I had never given up a

negotiation point that I was fighting for)? But those things didnt define

my career and I wasnt letting them stop my path forward. In short, I felt

very much that partnership was mine for the taking.

What stopped me in my tracks was the fact that I did not have a

balanced life. I was being encouraged to bill more and more time, to

spend more and more time in the office, and beyond that, I was being

asked to spend so much of my precious non-work time entertaining

clients and prospective law firm laterals. I was told that this is what

everyone does to make partner. I was single at the time, and I was

becoming nervous that I was going to remain so. When I first approached

the head of my group telling him I didnt think this path was for me, after

the requisite you can do this, just stick with it this is the hardest

part, he allowed me to go on a four month externship to a non-profit to

recharge before returning back to my old job. I didnt say no to

getting paid a BigLaw salary and working non-profit hours, but I knew it


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wasnt going to solve my issue. And heres a perfect example what I

mean by a solution that dont match the problem. I told him I didnt

have a good work/life balance so he gave a four months break and then

expected me to come back wanting to return to my 18 hour days? He

essentially gave me a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

Let me contrast that with a very similar story but at another firm.

My close friend Liz, who is now a partner at an AmLaw 100 firm, and has

been for years, approached the head of her group when she was a mid-

level associate and said something similar. The head of her group asked

what it would take to make her feel more comfortable staying. She said

she didnt want to travel anymore. She was honest about the fact that

she didnt feel like she was ever going to meet someone, get married,

have kids, because she was constantly on the road. So the partner told

her he would only staff her on deals that required no travel.

Furthermore, he told her he didnt care where she worked from, offering

her a little more flexibility. As she described it to me, this was the first

time she realized that she could do the job and also have a family. That

was six years ago now. In that time, she made partner, got married, had

two kids and opened a new office of her firm in the southwest.

The solutions we provide have to be responsive to the actual

problems. My firm dealt with my complaint by offering up a solution that

was used in the past for someone who had burnt out and needed a break.

It wasnt responsive to my request, and therefore didnt succeed. My

friends solution was created for her, and gave her what she specifically

needed. It allowed her to stay and succeed. Mine just pushed off the

day I was going to leave.


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This is fundamentally my issue with the idea of flextime as a

solution for women. Putting aside the issues raised in the White Paper

about flextime being stigmatized, and people on flextime being perceived

as no longer being on track for partner, I have a different issue. While

flextime arrangements allow lawyers to have a reduced billable hour

workload, as currently implemented at many firms, it doesnt actually

provide real flexibility for those people. If a client needs you, or if

something need to get done, youre still not going to be able to attend

that dance recital or class trip. And the fact that reduced billable hours

automatically leads to reduced pay (even when the law firm isnt

necessarily getting reduced value) is another problem too.

So when I finally decided to leave practice, like so many other

women I know, it wasnt because I didnt think partnership was

attainable. It was because I had decided I didnt want it. I had plenty of

mentors at the firm, but none of the women were people I aspired to

become. They all had been asked to give up everything, and when they

became partner, they found that life had in many ways passed them by. I

was not interested in making the sacrifices I felt I was going to have to

make.

I think thats something we dont always talk about in relation to

this problem, the lack of female role models at firms and the impact that

has on female associates. In my group, the only female partners were

single and unmarried, or divorced and unhappy. There were certainly

successful, happy, female partners at the firm with families, but not in

my practice group, and thats what I needed to see. Retaining anyone at

a law firm is dependent upon them seeing people at your firm who then


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can imagine becoming. I dont just mean seeing women at the top. I

mean seeing women who have the things you want, whether its a spouse

or partner, kids, or just general flexibility to have a life outside of work.

A different friend of mine was preparing to leave our law firm right as the

firm was planning to put her up for partner. Ironically, she was leaving to

go to Goldman Sachs where the work was no less intense, but the hours

more predictable. When the head partner begged her not to leave

promised her partnership in the next year or two and pointed to the

female partners in her group, her response was thats exactly why Im

leaving they are exactly what I dont want to become. When the prize

becomes something people dont want, its hard to keep them around.

Just yesterday, LeanIn.Org launched a new campaign called

Together Women Can. In Sheryl Sandburgs own words: The campaign

emphasizes that women can be powerful allies for each other at work

and are uniquely qualified to do so because we experience many of the

same challenges. When a woman helps another woman, they both benefit.And when women celebrate one anothers accomplishments, were all lifted

up. One takeaway from the campaign is that women are in the best

position to change the status quo that defines full dedication as giving

100% of your attention to work. Since few women can do that, its

another way of unconsciously excluding women. The campaign pushes

women to redefine success in a way that transcends the status quo, and

leaves room for women to succeed. As women take positions of power in

law firms, and corporations, the idea is that they will be the ones to

spearhead the change. And as more junior women see senior women who

they can aspire to be, people like my friend Liz who have achieved that


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work/life balance, I believe we will have more women wanting to stay in

the profession.

But in a world where billable hours are the only real measure if

success, it really is difficult to create balance. Every hour out of the

office is an hour not billed. Furthermore, and I saw this happen

repeatedly, women who decided to have families were written off

immediately. The women who redeemed themselves were the ones that

created full work flexibility by finding full-time coverage for their kids.

In my role as staffing coordinator at a large firm, I often was faced with

resistance when partners were asked to work with people who had

flexible arrangements or who wanted to make it home for dinner with

their kids but were then available to log back on and work from home,

one of them who even offering to come back to the office after putting

her kids to sleep. This woman would have been out of pocket for 2 hours

and back online, but many partners were unwilling to work with her on

these terms. Thats what I mean about thinking short term instead of

long term this woman was asking for a small concession but since it did

not confirm to the norm, it was rejected. (Unsurprisingly, this associate

eventually left the firm for an in-house role that afforded her more

flexibility.) Im starting to think, after reading the Stanford White Paper,

and reflecting upon the stories I just relayed, that the billable hour issue

really is, at the heart of it, a feminist one. Maybe its the one we should

all consider tackling first.

Because it just cant be that the only choice for a women who

happens to be a mother, or wants to be a mother, is to get fulltime help

at home to give her the same billing flexibility as then men, or leave the


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job. That cannot be what we want the solution to be. Thats why, in

addition to the solutions we have come up with today, we need to also

start working to change the way we think about commitment, and

success, at the law firm. What if success and commitment was tied to

outcome, not billable hours. You could get the same result from your

lawyers and incentivize them to be more efficient with their time.

I happen to work for a company that has made a commitment to

advancing women, and incidentally fulfills a number of the

recommendations detailed in the White Paper, so there is proof that if

you want to fix these things, you can. Mike Bloomberg himself has put

multiple women at the top of his management structure Patty Harris is

the head of Philanthropy, something that we all know is extremely

important to him; Patty Roskill is the CFO; Beth Mazzeo is the COO. At

every major management meeting, when people present to Mike, they

see him flanked by these powerful women. And he has made sure the

company understands that diversity is a priority and he holds his leaders

accountable for doing the same. Furthermore, we are measured on what

we accomplish, not how many hours it takes us to do it. When you talk

about more action; fewer words, its clear that Bloomberg isnt just

saying it, hes doing it. And this obviously trickles down through the

company.

In my division, the Legal Division, there are more women than men

reporting to the President. I can tell you that personally I know my

performance is measured on what I accomplish rather than what hours I

spend in the office. I am given the flexibility to attend the out of work

things that are important to me, or necessary for me to be at. I love my


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job, Im excited to go to work every day, because in my job I dont have

to apologize for devoting time to my family, for attempting to be home

for dinner and bedtime every night and then logging back in at night, if

need be. Of course I give things up at home too. I skip more things at my

kids school than I go to; my nanny takes my kids to their doctors

appointments; I am yet to attend a school trip. However, I am allowed to

go to the things that are important with no prejudice. And frankly my

boss, David Perla, one of the judges here, attends to his family as well.

And we all respect him for it. We work in an environment where

balancing the two is a constant struggle, but is done openly, and women

and men alike can have balance and also succeed.

In order to provide people flexibility and balance in the law firm

environment, I think we need to relax some of our existing conventions.

To find a way to assess performance in a way that transcends the need to

hit a specific billable hour requirement, and get people truly comfortable

with the idea that people can work everywhere. Technology, including

Bloomberg Law, the tool I work on, are now accessible to people no

matter where they are. People can access their secure networks,

collaboration tools and internal databases and document repositories,

from home. There is no reason why someone couldnt go home, put his

or her kids to sleep and then log back on and continue to work. When I

was in charge of staffing, partners often resisted working with associates

who sought to have this arrangement, and we let them do that. I think

we need to stop allowing partners to say no. We need to force the issue.

And we have to find a way to support women through the years

where they have the largest childbearing burden. I promise you, if you


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can help them get through those years and in the scheme of things,

there arent that many years where our kids demand that much of our

time - youll have them in the profession for many years to come. Its a

small investment for a large gain.

Its about thinking long term, not short term. Let me tell you a

story that illustrates what I mean. When I interviewed at Bloomberg back

at the end of 2011 I was 7 months pregnant. I was unhappy in my current

position, but figured no one would hire someone that pregnant. I

interviewed anyhow, at the suggestion of a friend. That same person

coached me to not be apologetic about the pregnancy it was nothing to

be embarrassed about and had nothing to do with my ability to do the

job. Nonetheless, I was shocked to receive a job offer that would give

me a three month maternity leave after only working for two months. A

number of months after returning to work I told my boss that I thought he

was brave to hire someone so pregnant. He looked at me, confused, and

said, You were the right person for the job. We had looked for a while

before meeting you. We were willing to lose you for 3 months to have

you for the duration.

And thats really what it comes down. Its really simple. We need

to think about the long game. We need to stop thinking that a maternity

leave, going on flextime to raise a child, or trying to achieve balance

between work and family is something insurmountable. We need to

consider different possibilities for different people, with no prejudice.

Its not worse, or less committed, to take time off or have a reduced

schedule its just a different way to get there. We need to stop thinking

that its anti-feminist to treat women differently. We are different. We


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have different needs and different concerns, and we need different

solutions.

We need to decide where we want women to be at our law firms

and organizations presumably with equal representation in the partner

ranks, C-level positions and on committees and then we need to work to

get there. Its short term thinking that gets us in trouble. If we want

women in those roles, we need to create an environment that makes that

possible, and we need to make it happen now. All law firms say that

retaining women is important to them. If so, lets aspire to have less

talk, and more action.

melanie heller_hackathon keynote

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