Women's bars today: Three female
lawyers on their purpose, challenges

by Jane Easter Bahls

Time was when female lawyers were as rare as a cool breeze on a summer day. But these days, only the stodgiest members of the old guard would raise eyebrows at the mention of a female lawyer, and, while the proportions shift somewhat from year to year, young women continue to enter law school in droves. What is the purpose of women's bar associations today? Are they still as vital and critical as they were in the days when women lawyers were scarce? How have they evolved-or how should they evolve-to meet the needs of today's women lawyers? Bar Leader asked three influential female lawyers about their experiences and opinions on this subject. Here are their stories in brief.

Tracking progress
When Helen Perry Grimwood began her law practice in 1980, she was one of the few women lawyers in Phoenix with two small children. That kept her too busy for much professional service, but she joined the Arizona Women Lawyers Association (AWLA), the Maricopa County Bar Association, and the State Bar of Arizona. When the children were in grade school, she started serving on boards, first at the county level and then at the state. She served as president of the Maricopa chapter of AWLA in 1995-1996 and the following year as AWLA's state bar president. She is now a vice president of the National Conference of Women's Bar Associations.

Meanwhile, she was climbing the ladder in the general bars, serving as chair of the Commercial Litigation CLE Committee for the Maricopa County Bar Association, and now secretary/treasurer on the Board of Governors of the State Bar of Arizona and elected fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

"I've always enjoyed the parallel experiences," says Grimwood, who practices civil litigation in The Grimwood Law Firm. Because a women's bar association is a smaller group, she says, it's easier for people to get to know each other, and the members share similar challenges and concerns, such as life balance, diversity in the judiciary, and law firm partnership for women.

"Leading a mandatory bar is a challenge because you have to answer to every single lawyer in the state," she says. And while women's bars tend to be consensus builders, not everyone in the general bar responds to that style.
When Grimwood was president of AWLA, the organization surveyed the 25 largest law firms in the state, asking how many women partners they had. The survey garnered attention in the media, and firms started competing to improve. "Firms didn't like not getting a good score," she says. "Scores ranged from 0 percent to 25 percent, and it was hard for firms with none to explain why." The organization did the same thing with appointments to the judiciary, simply publishing the statistics-such as the fact that no woman had been appointed to the Arizona Supreme Court in 22 years. "The excuses start sounding really lame," Grimwood says.

"Women's bar associations must continue to provide focused leadership and a voice for issues important to women in the profession," she says, adding that what has changed is that traditional bars now encourage this. "They depend on the women's bar to keep track of both progress and failure, and to advocate constructive and appropriate change."

Speaking up
Some might call Laurel Bellows a rabblerouser. There was already a Women's Bar Association of Illinois 10 years ago when Bellows founded the Alliance for Women within the Chicago Bar Association-and some there, she recalls, were unhappy about the competition. "I didn't feel the women's bar was taking on the hard issues," she says. Since then, the Alliance for Women has become the largest committee of the Chicago bar. "It's become a pipeline for women to prove themselves," she says.

Bellows, whose practice with Bellows & Bellows in Chicago concentrates on business and securities, has been active in the Chicago Bar Association since entering the profession in 1974. She served as president of that bar in 1991. She is also heavily involved with the ABA, where she is a member of both the House of Delegates and the Board of Governors. She believes strongly in the role of special-interest bars, whether for women or for racial minorities. "They do provide a comfort level of attorneys who have other things in common," she says. And, she adds, on advocacy issues, members already agree there's a need and can jump right into working out solutions: "You don't have to spend a year exploring whether there's a problem."

Bellows contends that women's bar associations have become complacent now that women face fewer barriers to advancement. "Most have switched to networking and business development," she says. "I'm just wondering if they're addressing the most difficult issues."

Take the Equal Rights Amendment, for example. "Why haven't we heard of a women's bar association that has the ERA on its agenda?" Bellows wonders. "It's a conversation that never should have died." The same goes for the caps on damages that Congress imposed in discrimination cases, she says, and on implementation of plans to eliminate gender bias in the courts. "The women's bar should be poking a needle at the mainstream bar to make sure they jump higher and faster on these issues," Bellows says.

Bellows argues that specialty bar associations should remain independent so they can push their agenda. "It would be inappropriate for the Chicago Bar Association to advocate for a particular judge," she says. "It's wonderful to have a specialty bar to advocate for that community. Because they don't have an obligation to be general-purpose, they can take risks and speak up. But many don't."

Training ground
One of the first things Pamila Brown did after becoming a lawyer in 1979 was join the Alliance of Black Women Attorneys, a D.C.-area group that offers support and service opportunities. "It was an opportunity to network, and to develop leadership skills in a safe environment," she says. "The skills developed in specialty bars transferred well."

Brown, who has held a number of government legal positions, is now principal counsel for the state of Maryland's Department of General Services and an associate judge for the Howard County District Court. She served on the board of the Maryland Women's Bar Association and the Women's Law Center, a proactive group that files amicus briefs on issues of concern to women, and staffs a hotline on diversity and domestic issues. In the mid-1990s, she rose through the ranks of the Bar Association of Baltimore City, serving as president in 1997-98. In the past decade, she has also served on a wide variety of ABA committees and commissions. Her current involvement includes membership in the ABA House of Delegates.

Brown credits much of this to the leadership positions she had in women's bar associations early in her career. "It's a great opportunity for a young lawyer," she says. "It was a great experience to see women judges and women lawyers who've succeeded, up close and personal." In the beginning, she says, the purpose was networking and camaraderie. Later on, the organizations expanded into education, CLEs, public service, and publications. "I learned that you can agree to disagree without a scorched earth," she says, noting that women generally are concerned about people's feelings.

"Specialty bars play a unique role in our profession," Brown says. "They can reflect on issues that are pertinent and relevant to their constituents." And many of the issues that women's bars typically address won't be resolved any time soon. "We have not reached a time in our profession when it's totally color blind and gender blind," she says. "Women's bar associations bring that home on a regular basis. They act as the conscience of the larger bar."

Why we still need
women's bar associations

Part of the impetus for the formation of the Arizona Women Lawyer's Association was that traditional bar associations did not actively support women's entrance into the profession and did not provide a helpful or supportive forum for many of their concerns. Conditions have changed. Through the efforts of many, the traditional bar associations have worked hard to become more diverse and to foster diversity … Not only has the State Bar [of Arizona] adopted policies of inclusion, but it is constantly working to implement them.

Of course, there is still work to be done. No longer are women excluded from the legal profession, but they still have not gained much access to the social and business networks that are crucial to business development. No longer are law firms off-limits to women with children, but satisfactory flexible schedules are still the exception. No longer are women categorically excluded from litigation practice, but good training programs to help them hone trial skills are still few and far between. No longer are women's innate qualifications for "forensic strife" the subject of open debate, but they still do not benefit from the presumption of competence that their male counterparts frequently enjoy.

It should come as no surprise that women lawyers are still underrepresented in many law firm partnerships, the judiciary, and law school faculties, even when the figures are controlled for age and experience. Perhaps this explains why membership and interest in women's bar associations have never been higher. They keep growing because they continue to help women lawyers in dealing with issues of common concern.

[AWLA] is a good example. It provides CLE skills programs specifically tailored to women advocates. It monitors the judicial appointment process and the advancement of women to law firm partnerships. Its business development forums have helped women learn more effective marketing techniques. It also offers a special camaraderie. It's a place where women lawyers make no apologies for who they are or what they do, where they can support each other's successes and where they can help each other deal with professional and personal challenges.

As long as women's bar associations continue to serve the needs of women in the profession, they will continue to flourish, and the entire profession will be the better for it.

-Helen Perry Grimwood
Excerpted from Arizona Attorney Magazine, May 2001.

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