Baylor Law rocks, and I had a great time there last week.  I spoke to law students, law professors, and law school administrators the first day and to accepted and prospective students — and some parents and one dog! — the next day.  Yes, one dog — a really precious dog and NOT a service dog!   That was a first for me.

Both of those appearances were very successful, and the young women law students and prospective law students I met at Baylor were fully engaged in my messages and asked thoughtful and thought-provoking questions.  They stayed around afterwards to talk to me, they shared their own personal stories, they bought books, and some of them even e-mailed me later.  I was particularly impressed by the student panelists, who had insight into their future careers that is not typical of women so young.  It was a pleasure to listen to them and to know that they are the next generation of women lawyers and that they are off to such a great start.

My job is so interesting — and just plain fun — which explains why I fly all over the country doing it.  Flying and driving and and taking trains to some parts of the country where I never have been and know nothing about is worth it every time.  The more young women law students and lawyers I can connect with, the better.  They are the solutions to the low retention rates for women lawyers, and, if Best Friends at the Bar can help improve their choices and make successful and satisfying careers for them more possible, I feel like I am doing my part to create an improved law profession for everyone.  I am not a Queen Bee, and I believe that all seasoned women lawyers have a responsibility to mentor and sponsor young women lawyers to give them the best advantages possible in the profession.  They have special challenges, and they deserve our attention.

It was such a pleasure to meet everyone at Baylor Law and to hear from Baylor Lawyers, who take great pride in their educations and their camaraderie. It was so rewarding to watch the “light bulbs” go off for young women in those audiences.  It was so gratifying to know that these experiences will become part of the foundations for their law careers and will inform their decisions and professionalism throughout their careers.

The Baylor experience is unique.  The underpinnings of that experience are positive personal values, mission and service, and, for me, there are no better words to describe the most significant aspects of a successful and enduring law degree.

For a refresher course about how I view the law profession, read my article, Part 1 and Part 2, on the University of Michigan Career Services web site to learn what I love about the law and what I learned from my Dad.  He could have been a Baylor Lawyer.  Instead, he was a Badger Lawyer (UW Law grad), but the things he respected about a law profession and his high standards for practice and service were indistinguishable from the Baylor experience.  How lucky I was to learn from him.

So, is it any wonder that I loved my time at Baylor Law?  Thanks to all of you at Baylor, who created that for me and who take every opportunity to make positive differences for remarkable young women in the law.  You know who you are …. and so do I …. and I will not forget you!

Go Baylor Law!

In my last blog, I challenged you to answer the question about the responsibility for the Queen Bee Syndrome that too often thwarts the progress toward advancing women in our profession.  I provided you with the thoughts of one commenter on the responsibility for that syndrome, and I told you that I would provide you with my own assessment.

I hope you have given some thought to the issue and to the way that the commenter evaluated the responsibility underlying the Queen Bee Syndrome.  As you might expect, I would not have answered the question in the same way that the commenter did for the following reasons.

When I heard the discussion, I wondered how the commenter would explain jealousy and competition between women in other settings like all-women book clubs, PTAs, and charity volunteer groups, for example, where gender discrimination is mostly irrelevant.  I have seen this competition, and show me the woman who has not.  I think the underlying reasons for the Queen Bees are very different and are derived from women’s inherent competition among their gender, and women are not going to face those issues and improve their behaviors and their effectiveness in advancing other women if they keep blaming the men for everything.

My answer would have focused on the responsibility for women to put their unfortunate experiences behind them and reach out helping hands to the new generation of women.  That is what Best Friends at the Bar is all about, and the women I have hand-picked as book contributors do it very well.  As a pioneer in my field of construction contract litigation (when I had my own hardhat and was one of the first women lawyers to litigate those cases), I understand the temptation to continue to dwell on the past.  I had plenty of challenges, and I had to give up my partnership at one point because I refused to work full-time when my children were young, and then I had to give up the construction contract practice because our clients, the good old boys, had enough trouble accepting a woman for a lawyer and presumably would not have tolerated dealing with a part-time woman lawyer.  (That, incidentally, was proven wrong in the end.)  At one point, I gave up private practice for public service, and it took me years to work myself back up to partnership.

However, I do not dwell on those past and personal challenges in my message, and I only use those examples to help young women put their challenges in perspective and see how far women in the law have come and how much farther they can go.  I always have been a problem solver, and I am no different in carrying out my mission for Best Friends at the Bar.  I concentrate on “personal definitions of success” and finding career satisfaction on individual terms.  I am not nearly as interested in the blame game as I am in finding ways for women to be successful and satisfied professionals.

Don’t misunderstand me.  The challenge of women helping women is a big problem, but we have to assign blame very carefully.  I have met too many powerful women in the law profession, who appear not to want things to be any better for the younger generation of women lawyers than those things were for them.  Many of them gave up family, lasting marriages, etc. for the singular focus that was necessary to reach the view from their high perches.  Their professional successes are noteworthy and admirable, but that is not a reason to refuse to help others.  Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State, says it best, “There is a place reserved in hell for women who do not help other women.”

Complaining about past and even present grievances, to the exclusion of all else, can be a distraction and saps us of too much energy that we need to find practical solutions for women in our profession.  We have to stop rehashing the same old problems.  We need to redefine them in contemporary terms and move on.  We also must understand that law is a business, and all of the things that men “do to us” in the business is not because of discrimination but because it is a business.  Rent and overhead and salaries have to be paid, and the doors must remain open to attract clients.  Without a healthy bottom line, there will be no jobs for women or for men.

So the next time you hear harangues about gender discrimination that brush too broadly, remember that this coin has two sides.  Real gender discrimination cannot be tolerated.  But, all of what you hear is not about real gender discrimination.

It is your job to be a discriminating listener not a listener for discrimination.