Does real estate law attract more women than other types of law?
It’s been said that women enjoy more of a connection to their communities. Women are very good at interacting with community groups and city officials and seeing a project through from the beginning to the end. How has life as a female attorney changed for you? When I graduated in 1978, women comprised less than a third of law school classes. Today the number is closer to 50 percent. Most firms today have in place part-time or flex-time programs to address work-life balance issues for women. But what has not changed as dramatically is the fact that we still don’t have a large percentage of women in the top ranks of firms. Ten years ago the percentage of women partners was 14 percent and today it’s only 17 percent. When I first started in land use law, I was the first woman to do land use in D.C. Now there are many including several women here who practice with me. At the time that I started there also wasn’t a networking organization for women and now we have CREW. I think we’ve made a
