Jezebel 
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New York, 1:51 AM
Fri Nov 13
67 posts in the last 24 hours
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09/16/09
09/16/09
09/16/09
1. No-one should earn this much. It's obscene, and can't be justified.
2. If we closed this pay-gap, we'd help what, 50 women at the top end of the tree? Fuck that. I want to help the billions of women (and men) who struggle with poverty.
3. A person earning that much won't get my help or sympathy for any reason, pay-gap or no. If you're earning 40m a year, you can't complain.
09/16/09
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(This isn't a criticism of women who stay home. I just want it always to be a choice.)
09/16/09
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09/16/09
And yet, there's extreme poverty not only around the world, but in right here in places like Appalachia.
Something is really out of whack.
09/16/09
09/16/09
And the gap at the top affects the gap lower on the ladder, like Anna says here:
Mason also writes that for women "the layers of missed opportunities, family obligations, and small and large slights build up over the years, slowing their career progress compared with men." These layers may be keeping women in the highest echelons from making the biggest bucks possible, but they have a proportionally higher impact on women lower down, for whom a promotion can mean much-needed money and job security.
I'm at once outraged by the exorbitant salaries these people are making, the abject poverty around the world and in the US, and by gender inequity.
09/16/09
09/16/09
Additionally, long term capital gains tax (which is any money that you earn after holding a stock for over a year and then selling) is outrageously small (15%, unless you're in a low income bracket).
Rich people who bitch about paying taxes are straight up stupid, because there are so many perfectly legal ways to get around it.
09/16/09
This whole thing is just so disgusting to me. I don't even know where to start.
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I would like it if this showed how serious this is for the much lower rungs, but I don't know if it will. I myself am still stuck on the utterly exorbitant salaries on display. It's really hard to get past that.
04/29/09
04/28/09
Seems like this would be more supportive of a meritocracy, and increase competition, forcing do-nothing fatcats out. I'd think big firms' litigation teams that can't adapt or produce would begin to fragment into smaller boutiques, when the rock-stars can't get their margins.
04/28/09
Anyway, a few weeks ago the program was a recording of a panel discussion of four or five female state supreme court chief justices and most of them went to law school in the 70s. The theme of the discussion seemed to be "Ladies have it good now." But in their day, as one explained, it was not so unusual for a judge to hear argument in chambers and tell the female lawyer that he might hear her a little better if she sat on his lap.
Although that kind of stuff certianly wouldn't be acceptable today, if you look at the numbers, women are associates, not numbers. We might be 60% of today's granduating classes, and represent 50% of of BigLaw's associates (pulling numbers out of my ass here, but I think they're about right), but we're like 5% of BigLaw's partners. Something's wrong with that picture. And I don't think it's just because we're playing catch-up.
04/28/09
04/28/09
04/28/09
Law firms are notorious for not exactly telling the truth to its workers (See: Stealth layoff, paternity leave, which one takes at his own peril, and having more than one child before becoming partner).
As any big firm refugee will tell you, any discretion will almost always (save for that one, generally white male exception) screw everyone. Wages will go down, profits will go up (which is a win for the author of this article). Confusion, discretion, and a lack of a clear policy feeds into this. Also? This is the way people work for 20 years and find out they were categorically making less than men.
Yes, billable hours suck. Clients hate them and more often than not negotiate fat discounts. But people need to be given (objective) credit for their contributions.
04/28/09
i agree that discretion is the enemy. i'm in favor of associates (women especially) talking and talking loudly about what they make and the reasons they're given for any reduction in pay. but i don't believe billable hours have been any sort of solution for anyone except the most inefficient.
04/28/09
(1) Having children. No one would ever say this aloud at my old gig, but women get one, just, one maternity leave before extra time is added to the partner track (I mean, er, they are tossed off partner track). That's it.
(2) The free market system fucks everyone over due to the fact that many older male partners (and a surprisingly large number of female partners) will not give decent work to the female associate.
(3) The "Girl Friday" syndrome. This shit is the worst. The woman becomes the go to person for the partner. Handles everything. But when it comes to client involvement, the male partner runs the show and inevitably will hand his business to another male partner because his "Girl Friday" doesn't have enough client management experience. The new guy may shit can the woman after she spends a year or two training his guy or girl Friday to take the reigns. The income partnerships of the law firms are full of these women.
04/28/09
I have this awful sinking feeling in my stomach now.
04/28/09
I have stories that I can't/won't tell because it's just too personal, but rest assured - this industry is crazy. The women that went before me - crazy - because they had to be to get ahead. And now, they see nothing wrong with it. I am not ready for that brand of crazy. It's like hazing.
That being said - I am well-paid for my misery. So I got that going for me, which is nice.
04/28/09
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04/28/09
I have complete sympathy for the difficulties women in firms face, and several of my best friends have been toiling away in these sweatshops since law school. I completely love my job, and I love that it (so far) has felt comparatively secure. But when that monthly student loan bill comes, well, sorry, I just don't feel that bad for young associates. I'm in a legal field where women are not penalized for taking time off to have children, where the ability to work from home or part-time is often negotiated, and where I have never felt less respected for being female. But I get paid a hell of a lot less than if I worked in a firm.
I don't think BigLaw will change all that much. I'm not sure it really needs too. I think what needs to change is the law school mentality that you're only a "real" lawyer if you go to a firm and get rich quick. There's a ton of other options that can be satisfying for their own reasons.
04/28/09
04/28/09
Never mind that no human -- man or woman -- should be required to bill the way many law firms require.
Fewer women can get ahead in the model because kids take time, even if you have a nanny raise them, you have to give birth at some point.
04/28/09
I actually make MORE money working for myself. Every day is a workday, but I can take off for an appointment without incurring the wrath of some dickhead who spends his days having lunch with clients. However, my boss can be a real bitch...
Away with the billable hour! AND, the third year of law school should be an APPRENTICESHIP. We graduate not knowing a damned thing about actually practicing law.
I won't hold my breath...
04/28/09
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04/28/09
Except when you can't get a non-BIGLAW job to save your life.
04/28/09
04/28/09
@Never_Nude: Including myself my firm has 6 employees total (included staff), I do mainly Respondent Property Tax Appeal right now and Petitioner is usually represented by a giant firm and their billing scale compared to ours is crazy. The client gets stuck paying for so much extra hours that contribute absolutely NOTHING to their case.
04/28/09
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