What advice would you give a young woman considering a career in the law today?

Transcription

1

2 Sallie G. Smylie Partner Sallie G. Smylie is a litigation partner in the Chicago office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. She is chair of the recruiting committee for the Chicago office, a member of the firm-wide development and diversity committees, and past co-chair of the summer associate program. Ms. Smylie s areas of practice include commercial and product liability litigation, shareholder class and derivative actions, and employment and ERISA class actions. She has extensive experience representing financial and insurance institutions, manufacturers of pharmaceutical and consumer products, and other corporate clients. Ms. Smylie earned her BA with honors from Salem College in 1977 and her JD from the DePaul University College of Law in 1989, where she was a member of the law review and earned numerous academic awards. She joined Kirkland & Ellis LLP in She is married, has three daughters, and is actively involved in church music programs. Q&A with Sallie G. Smylie What advice would you give a young woman considering a career in the law today? If the question is whether she should pursue a career in the law, my advice is yes, she should. [A] legal education provides the opportunity to develop and hone skills that are immensely marketable and useful, not only in traditional law jobs or law firms or corporate counsel offices, for example, but in many other areas where it s important to be able to express yourself well and communicate your thoughts in a clear, organized, and persuasive fashion, orally and in writing. You re developing skills that employers across the board in many different industries and capacities place a premium on, and so I think it s a terrific idea to pursue a legal education. Have you personally experienced any advantages or disadvantages in the legal industry because of your gender? I will answer that question by looking at several different perspectives, and that is, one, within my own firm, two, within the arena in which I practice, and three, relations with clients. The answer for all three of those areas is that on balance I believe I have experienced more advantages than disadvantages by the fact that I am a woman. First of all, my entire legal career has been spent here at Kirkland & Ellis. I was a summer associate here, and then I came here right after graduation from law school in 1989 and I ve been here ever since. And Kirkland is a place that rewards and promotes lawyers who are smart, have strong analytical and communication skills, are tenacious and committed, and have the personal skills to develop good client relationships. And all of those are traits that I don t think favor one sex over the other, and I ve been able to succeed here because I have those traits, and I ve been rewarded and promoted for those. In terms of the second arena, the courtroom where I spend a lot of my time thinking back earlier in my career, I remember occasions when I was arguing in front of a judge and feeling like the judge was paying more deference to the arguments or the positions being advanced by my opposing counsel, who usually were male, and by and large were at least 15 or 20 years Visit the Vault Law Channel, the complete online resource for law careers, featuring firm profiles, message boards, the Vault Law Job Board, and more

3 older than I was. And I remember thinking, Am I getting a fair shot here? Is this judge paying attention to me? Ultimately, I don t think my client was disadvantaged and I don t think the judge was making decisions based on the fact that I was a woman. And there were other factors that may have led to the judge s demeanor or at least my perception of that demeanor. For example, I mentioned that typically I was a lot younger than my opposing counsel, and I think youth is something that is not necessarily an advantage when you re in front of a judge who may pay more deference to lawyers who have been around the block a few times. And the second thing is that typically I was arguing cases in courts outside of Chicago, because Kirkland has a national practice, and so I would likely be arguing against a lawyer who, unlike me, appeared in that court all the time, and the judge was used to seeing that lawyer and had tried cases with that lawyer. So I think those could have been factors at play as well, and I couldn t parse through any of those and conclude that the judge was more deferential to the opposing attorney because he was male. In any event, I have not experienced a similar perception in recent years. Of course, I m a lot older now, too! The third perspective is my relationships with clients, and have I been disadvantaged by being a female in those relationships, and the answer to that is absolutely not! More and more clients are demanding and expecting that women play key, significant roles on the cases for which Kirkland is retained, and to that extent it s been an advantage to be a woman. I also strive to develop relationships with clients that are not just based on the fact that I m a good lawyer and have good skills and bring good strategic decisions to bear. I like to work with clients on a personal level as well, learn about them, their family interests, their hobbies, so that we have a connection on a personal level as well, and I think that maybe comes more naturally to a woman to pursue that angle of a relationship and to that end it has been an advantage. What kind of steps have law firms and other legal employers taken in the last few years to create a better working environment for women? What else do you think needs to happen in this area? Over the past 16 years that I ve been practicing, I have seen law firms Kirkland in particular take steps that are designed to support women, to support their chances of succeeding and developing as lawyers and leaders in their firms, particularly by providing opportunities and resources to them that are supportive of what they re doing. For example, several years ago at Kirkland we launched something called the Women s Law Initiative WLI which provides a regular forum for discussions of issues that are important and are relevant to women in the firm, as well as women in the legal community, and provides opportunities to network and to provide a supportive network for our female attorneys. What sort of structures need to be in place to increase the number of women law leaders at top law firms and in corporate counsel capacities? I think there are both external and internal structures that can make a difference in increasing the number of women law leaders at top law firms. The first external structure is the legal community, the second is clients, and the third is internal structures, and taking them in that order. The legal community is taking the lead by firms partnering with each other and holding each other accountable to doing things that will increase the number of women who are in the top leadership roles in their firms. There are probably two dozen or more law firms and corporations Northern Trust for example, banks and other organizations that in 2005 signed up [for] the Call to Action, which is essentially a set of goals we have committed to attaining. For example, to increase the percentage of women who are serving on firm committees, who are becoming practice group leaders in their firms or their organizations. There are five commitments that Kirkland & Ellis as a signatory to the Call to Action has made. We are committed to the goal of raising the percentage of women partners by three percent from 2004 levels by December We ve committed to a goal of having women represented on every firm committee in the same proportion as the number of women partners in the firm. We ve committed to a goal of increasing the number of women practice group leaders at the firm. We agree to review our flexible hour policy and its use in order to ensure that alternative schedules are an equitable and viable option for women. We agree to materially improve any disparity in the rates in which men and women are retained and promoted and laterally recruited at the firm Vault Inc.

4 Another external structure I mentioned is clients. More and more I have seen clients look to partner with law firms that are committed to increasing the number of women and minorities who are in leadership roles at their firms, and it s becoming one of the criteria for retention of the firm. Clients are doing more than just talking about this being important; they re actually insisting on it! That s a very influential and a very significant external factor that increases the motivation and the incentive on behalf of the firm to make sure that we are well-positioned by having women in leadership roles in the firms and also women in key positions on the individual teams that we put together to service our clients needs. And the internal structure factor that is important is that a value or premium is placed on how well existing leaders of the firm are doing at developing and advancing minorities and women in the organization, so that their own performance is measured by how well they are doing are they mentoring women, are they taking the time to work with women, to introduce them to clients, to make sure that they are getting the exposure and the opportunities that will help them succeed in the firm? I think we can take some lessons from corporate America in terms of measuring the performance of firm leaders by how well they re doing to provide optimal chances for long-term success for women in the firm. What impact has a career in law had on your personal and family life? Do you have any special techniques, methods and philosophies that help you maintain a work/life balance and be a successful lawyer? I am very involved in recruiting at Kirkland I m chair of the recruiting committee here and this is a topic which is very near and dear to my heart, and was very important to me when I was starting out because unlike most, when they start their legal careers, I was already married and I already had a child, even before I went to law school. I was a legal secretary and a paralegal for nine years while my husband was pursuing his graduate studies, and my first daughter was six when I started out at Kirkland as a lawyer. I had a second daughter who was born during my first year here, and I had a third daughter a few years after that. But the point is that chronologically, my career as a lawyer came second. Not only has my career come second chronologically, but I have remained committed to keeping it second in terms of what s important to me and my priorities. My family always has been and always will be my first priority. Now that does not mean I do not give my all for my clients and I do not work long hours, and occasionally miss a daughter s mid-afternoon volleyball game or a parent/teacher conference because I can t get away from the office. I wouldn t be where I am today if I wasn t willing to make sacrifices in order to service the needs of my clients. But when I say my family is first and my career is second, it means that I am motivated and I strive day in and day out to be as organized as possible so that I can attend mid-afternoon volleyball games when I can, and I am at home for dinner whenever possible. I have very strong magnets pulling me home, and they give me the incentive and the motivation to be as organized during the day as I possibly can be, without sacrificing the service that I provide to my clients. I think that I was advantaged by already being married and already having started a family before I began my career, because it enabled me to start out with the balance that I ve been fairly successful at maintaining ever since. I don t want to disappoint my clients, but I also don t want to disappoint my husband and my children. And I know that if I make a commitment to doing something with them I m going to keep that promise unless something out of my control happens. But I don t want to let people down, and I know that about myself, so I use that to my advantage to help me be self-disciplined and organize my practice and my day. I think that for some who start out and who don t have a relationship or a significant other or spouse or a child, it s all too easy for their job as an attorney to become all-consuming because they don t have the need or incentive to be anywhere but at the office. They believe they can or should put their personal lives on hold and start out working really long hours. I don t think that s healthy in the short-term, and it s certainly not healthy in the long-term. My advice for maintaining a work/life balance is to have some type of obligation, some type of commitment, whether it s sitting on a board or having a running partner, something that demands your time and attention away from your obligations as a lawyer on a regular, routine basis, which will ultimately enable you to develop the skills to be an efficient lawyer and an organized one, so that you can have a good work/life balance. Visit the Vault Law Channel, the complete online resource for law careers, featuring firm profiles, message boards, the Vault Law Job Board, and more

5 What other careers and life choices did you consider before deciding on a career in the law? If you were not practicing law and you could not be a lawyer, what would your dream career be now? Well, first of all, I love to read. And second, I love classical music. I actually started college intending to major in music and be an organ performance major, but I decided that a liberal arts degree was the more practical way to go. I tell you that as background because my dream day job is to own a bookstore that also has a large, good classical music collection as well. And then on the weekends, I would moonlight as a substitute church organist. How do you expect the practice of law will change in the next ten years? First of all there are client expectations and requirements that women and minorities serve in significant roles on their cases. This is something that I ve observed increasingly within the last 10 years, and I think will only increase as we go forward into the next 10 years. Clients want to put in action things that have been spoken for years, and they really mean it they really do want women and minorities to be successful and to be working on their cases/transactions/matters. Secondly, clients are becoming more and more attuned to legal fees and the need to manage them in ways that I think will result in demanded efficiencies, and more budgeting and tighter controls over the amount of time that attorneys are able to spend on a matter. And frankly I think this trend is good for women, because being efficient is a way I think women and men too can maintain a good work/life balance. The third trend that I have seen is the obvious technology advancements. And this is kind of a mixed bag for women, because technology advancements have made it such that clients can reach you 24/7, particularly with the advent of the BlackBerry. It creates real challenges to the work/life balance if the BlackBerry s sitting on your dining room table at home and it s beeping every five minutes. It creates challenges for managing client expectations as to their ability to reach you, their access to you, and your response time. Because I think we all know that when we send an to somebody, we expect a response quickly the next few minutes and if we don t get an immediate response, we start to wonder what s going on. And it s going to be tricky to manage those expectations both from the client perspective and from the attorney s expectations about what s a reasonable turnaround time for getting work done. I think it also creates challenges for developing the kind of self-discipline that attorneys must develop to remain healthy, productive attorneys who do not work 24/7! And that means you have to turn off the BlackBerry. And then the fourth aspect of the practice of law going forward is human capital management. Leaders of law firms need to recognize that a new generation is emerging. The men and women coming out of law school today represent a different generation from leaders of the law firms to which they are going. I think they see the world differently. They have different preferences for how they communicate, they have different expectations of what a meaningful job is going to be, and as leaders in our law firms we have to be flexible and willing to adapt the way we develop lawyers, the way we train them, the way we manage their time. Those models that we ve used for 10 or 15 years may need to be changed, because we have different people different human capital that we ll be trying to help succeed in the next 10 years Vault Inc.

6 [A] legal education provides the opportunity to develop and hone skills that are immensely marketable and useful, not only in traditional law jobs or law firms or corporate counsel offices, for example, but in many other areas where it s important to be able to express yourself well and communicate your thoughts in a clear, organized, and persuasive fashion, orally and in writing. Sallie G. Smylie Partner Visit the Vault Law Channel, the complete online resource for law careers, featuring firm profiles, message boards, the Vault Law Job Board, and more