Nationally, women attorneys make up approximately 40% of the profession in 2020.[1] Yet, women attorneys remain underrepresented and underpaid. According to the ABA reports, in 2016, women attorneys earned $1,619 per week on average, whereas male attorneys earned $2,086.[2] For women attorneys of color, the pay gap is even wider. According to the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), Black women are paid $0.63 for every dollar paid to their white male counterparts, and Latinas earn a paltry $0.55. These wage gaps translate to an annual median loss of $24,110 for Black women and $29,098 for Latinas. Over a 40-year career, this loss is around $1 million for Black and Hispanic women.

March 15, 2022, marks another year for Women’s Equal Pay Day, a day created in 1996 to bring awareness to the wage gap among men and women. However, as these statistics show, women attorneys remain significantly underpaid in comparison to white, male attorneys.  Achieving pay equity between men and women in the workplace is a complex process that involves effective training and changing the internal culture of an organization. A few of the following tips from the American Bar Association’s Pay Equity Task Force are some examples of how the legal profession, in particular law firms, can work to achieve equity in pay among men and women attorneys.

1.   Be Transparent

The ability of partners to measure whether a compensation process has gender-specific impacts depends on whether the system is “open” or closed, whether partners have full access to one another’s compensation, or whether partners know only their own numbers and not the compensation of their colleagues. In closed systems, absent a specific process in place to monitor the results, determining gender equity is a matter of trust, rather than as a verifiable outcome.[3] Women who suspect that they are being shortchanged in their compensation, or systematically excluded from certain practice groups or other internally available opportunities to advance their careers, cannot prove their concern because they are denied access to verifying information.[4]

2. Re-Structure the Compensation System

Origination credit is another top factor in compensation. However, obtaining origination credit is historically much easier for white male attorneys compared to women and minority attorneys. Origination credit can span decades; as such, this structure inhibits law firms from meaningfully achieving gender equity. To effectively close the pay wage gap, law firms need compensation tied to client relationships, rather than origination.

When the vast majority of law firm clients have supplier diversity programs, law firms should be taking swift action to correct these inequities. There is no shortage of levers to pull to fix the pay gap for women of color:

• All incoming attorneys—regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or disability status—should be hired at the same salary and bonus structure.
• Firms should not rely on salary history in negotiating incoming attorney salary.
• Firms must establish equal opportunities for advancement within the firm to ensure equal access to salary increases.
• Law firms should regularly review internal pay equity and take swift action to pay people equally for equivalent work.
• Firms must tackle unconscious bias head-on with continuous, ongoing training. Unconscious bias permeates every aspect of talent acquisition and retention.
• Firms should consider making their compensation models more transparent and equitable to boost retention and reveal a clear growth path for diverse talent.[5]

3. Increase Diversity of the Compensation Committee

The inclusion of, at best, only one or two women on law firm compensation committees “creates the risk of the unhealthy dynamic that surround tokenism.” To move beyond this dynamic, firms should include within their appointment or election process steps that will ensure a diverse and inclusive committee. Companies who have more women in key leadership roles and board positions outperform their competitors: “These statistically significant studies show that companies with a higher proportion of women on their management committees are also the companies that have the best performance.”[6]

            The long-standing and continuing gender gap in compensation should be considered unacceptable in any business. Gender disparities are so entrenched in the legal profession in light of our profession’s principles. Justice not only includes what we seek for our clients, but it also includes equal access to opportunities to succeed in our own workplaces, and we should collectively work to move our underrepresented and minority attorneys closer to equity.