The Grace Period: Shining A Light on Lawyer Wellbeing
The Grace Period: Shining A Light on Lawyer Wellbeing
Episode 32: Women in the Room -- On Being a Female Partner in 2025
The legal profession has a math problem. Despite law schools graduating classes with 50% or more women for years, female attorneys continue to disappear from partnership tracks at alarming rates. Why do women leave, and what does it mean for those who stay?
In this reflective and deeply personal episode, I share my ABA-published essay "Women in the Room: On Being a Female Partner in 2025." Drawing from my own journey through big law, I explore the jarring moment when, after making partner, I walked into my first partner meeting to find only five women among approximately twenty partners. This stark gender imbalance exists despite our associate ranks being predominantly female—a contradiction that raises uncomfortable questions about how the legal profession continues to function.
Emily examines how women in law often find themselves performing the professional equivalent of "housework"—tracking deadlines, organizing teams, saying yes to additional tasks—while simultaneously trying to fit themselves into a century-old model of what a partner should look like. For those with intersecting identities—women of color, LGBTQIA+ attorneys, those with disabilities—these challenges multiply exponentially. We're left contorting ourselves to fit spaces not designed for us.
But this isn't just about counting women in rooms. It's about creating genuine pathways to leadership that don't require women to choose between authenticity and advancement. My hope is that associates will have real choices about what their future in the law looks like, including partnership at big firms.
Find out more at https://thegraceperiod.substack.com/.
Welcome to the Grace Period where we get real about attorney mental health and well-being and pull back the veil on the high-stakes world of big law. I'm your host, emily Logan Stedman. In this demanding profession, it is crucial that we don't lose ourselves in the hustle for billable hours. On the Grace Period, we have honest conversations about finding consistency, minimizing chaos, developing coping strategies and destigmatizing mental health. It is time to prioritize our shared humanity, to find our grace period. Welcome to episode 32 of the Grace Period. This week, I want to share a reflection on what it means to be a female partner in big law in 2025. This is a spoken version of an essay that the ABA recently published, titled Women in the Room on being a female partner in 2025.
Speaker 1:Woman lawyer, female litigator, professional woman. Woman in big law, female litigator, professional woman. Woman in big law. Until recently, I never gave much credence to these phrases. Yes, I'm a woman, a female, but mostly I'm a lawyer, a litigator, a professional, and in big law, what does my gender matter to that? I started law school in 2010. I don't recall the exact statistics, but I'm confident that my class was close to 50% men and 50% women, and that's the new norm in law schools with a lot, if not most, skewing 50% plus or more. Female. Associate classes at bigger firms follow suit, with graduating classes of law students being mostly women. It follows that law firm junior ranks are too, but something happens in private practice as you climb the ranks.
Speaker 1:Women leave. Yes, men leave too, but women leave more often. There are a lot of valid reasons for this. Often, there are a lot of valid reasons for this. Realizing private practice isn't for them in favor of public interest or smaller firms, changing practice areas, which can often require changing firms too, leaving the law altogether, becoming a coach, a recruiter, a marketing professional, going in-house something women are increasingly poached for, women and diverse attorneys are increasingly poached for. And, of course, women leave to focus on their families, to have children, something I personally choose not to do. I must also acknowledge my privilege, my privilege and responsibility. Balancing the partnership track with family responsibilities and barriers and biases faced by my diverse friends and colleagues is particularly difficult. Women and lawyers of color face additional obstacles, as do members of the LGBTQIA plus community, those with disabilities and religious minorities. These lawyers must navigate unique challenges that compound the existing hurdles within the legal profession, and especially in big law I do not personally face many of those intersectional challenges, I recognize both my privilege and my responsibility to advocate for those who do.
Speaker 1:In 2021, I joined my firm's associate leadership committee we call it NextGen. I was an at-large board member and local Milwaukee office representative local Milwaukee office representative. In that role, we hosted a holiday happy hour for associates in Milwaukee at the distillery and bar across the street from our office. We sat down for appetizers and cocktails. Now the Milwaukee office of Hush Blackwell is very collegial so, as best we could, we squeezed around a couple tables on couches and pulling up extra chairs. It didn't take long for me to realize if there were 12 of us in this huddle, 10 were women. I clocked it almost immediately. A few minutes later, a then first-year associate saw it too, with a smile on her face. She proclaimed I love seeing all these women here. Face. She proclaimed I love seeing all these women here. My immediate and allowed response I need at least half of you to stay and make partner at this firm. Since then, four of us have made partner at Hush Blackwell in Milwaukee.
Speaker 1:Growing up, I never felt less than or called out because I was a girl. My parents, both attorneys, raised me under the guise of achievement, of being able to accomplish things academically. If I worked hard without any reference to my gender or stereotypical gender roles In classes, it wasn't any different. If I worked hard, followed directions played by the rules you know, checked boxes and collected gold stars, I achieved regardless of my gender. I never felt less than or even competitive with the boys. Most times it was just me against myself. And I lived most of my young adult life that way, moving from college to Teach for America, to law school. I did what I do best. I worked hard, I checked the boxes, I moved on to the next goal and then in 2016, following a clerkship and in chambers we were all women, and then four to one, women to men in the end.
Speaker 1:But after that I joined private practice as a big law commercial litigator. At first I didn't notice the mostly male environment. It didn't seem to matter. I was comfortable doing the work, eventually making friends with my co-associates and moving from junior to mid-level associate as planned, although there was only one, then two, then back to one and two other female litigation associates, and then two, then one, then zero, then back to one female litigation partners office and firm-wide the numbers were a little more even, but slowly I felt it. The good old boys club. The good old boys club. My conscience started questioning Do I fit in here? Can I be myself here? I realized you can be comfortable in the boys club as a woman and it can still hold you back. It can still hold you back. I think this mostly stems from trying to fit a stereotype the white male partner who has done private practice the same way for probably a hundred years and to which few people stop and ask is there a different way? I'm the square peg in the round hole. Many of us are, regardless of our gender, but more often for us women. So women leave.
Speaker 1:I rose through the ranks of big law with other women from my law school, from the Milwaukee legal community, and at both of the firms I've been at. As I sit here today, two of those women that I'm close with, that I grew up with on this career journey, are partners alongside me. The rest left, although I think one who recently lateraled to a big firm is likely on her way. It's truly striking. My firm, like many others, does the best it can and probably does better than most, if I'm being honest, and yet there remains so much work to be done. Both can be and are true. As an associate in our Milwaukee office, the vast and I mean the vast majority of associates were and still are women. In early 2024, though, after making partner, I attended my first Milwaukee partner meeting. I walked into a room of, let's say, 20 partners, five women present. Two couldn't make it. Since then we've added two female partners, but still the ratio of men to women partners in our office is jarring, not to mention the lack of other types of diversity in this group, and for the first time in my career it really feels like it truly matters.
Speaker 1:I don't know for sure what flipped this switch. Maybe it was realizing I had settled into the role of caregiver on a team. You know the attorney tracking deadlines, sending all the calendar invites, keeping things organized, always saying yes and routinely saving the day, women's work, housework. Maybe it was just one too many times being asked to do things and find documents, requests that shouldn't have been coming to me as a senior associate, as a partner and maybe even as an attorney altogether. Maybe it is a compliment to my work on attorney mental health and well-being, a still taboo topic in the law. The job is stressful for everyone, but studies show it is more stressful for younger lawyers, female attorneys, attorneys of color and members of the LGBTQIA plus community. Surely it is not controversial to say that this is because those of us in those groups are often hiding parts of ourselves, contorting our natural instincts, strengths and interests to fit the norm of this very traditional and hierarchical profession. Many of us are battling these stereotypes while also trying to build a sustainable and thriving practice and a personal life outside of work. Looking ahead, I realize my role has evolved. It's no longer just about my own career trajectory. It's about creating space for the women who will follow.
Speaker 1:When that first year smiled about seeing all the women at that happy hour, she wasn't just celebrating our presence, us being there. She was also seeing her own possible future. The path to partnership shouldn't require women to choose between authenticity and advancement. We shouldn't have to perfectly mirror a century-old model of what a partner looks like. The very qualities that make us different, our perspectives, our approaches to problem solving, our ways of building relationships. These aren't impediments, these aren't things we have to overcome. They're assets to embrace. So for me, being a woman partner isn't just a descriptor anymore. It's a responsibility and an opportunity. An opportunity to show those first-year associates that there isn't just one way to make it to the top. They don't have to contort themselves to fit into spaces designed for someone else, that perhaps together we can reshape those spaces entirely. Because when I think back to that happy hour, to those 10 women gathered around the table, I realize my goal isn't just for half of them to make partner. My goal is for all of them to have the choice, a real choice, about what their legal careers can look like and maybe, just maybe, by the time they're sitting in partner meetings, no woman will need to count how many of us there are in the room.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Grace Period. I hope you'll join me for my next episode, number 33, when I'll share what to do when you make a mistake, because you're human and it will happen to all of us. Remember you don't have to sacrifice your well-being for career success. By prioritizing self-care, setting boundaries and seeking support, you can survive and even thrive in the law and in big law. Until next time. Take care of yourselves and each other. That is the path to our grace period. Disclaimer all the views and opinions stated in here in this episode are strictly my own. Also, this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. Opinions stated in here in this episode are strictly my own. Also, this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It does not constitute professional advice of any kind, including legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created by listening to this podcast.
