Best Practice #8: Developing a process that does not penalize women for self-advocacy
In firms with effective performance evaluation training, partners will soon learn that penalizing women for self-promotion that is seen as unobjectionable by men is gender bias. Firms that fail to do so, at the very least need to make partners aware that their instincts may be to find distasteful in women, the kind of self-promotion they take for granted in men. Again, implicit bias will inevitably be a factor affecting law firm compensation of women and attorneys of color unless and until the firm makes its partners aware of the need to recognize the kinds of patterns that commonly arise, and to self-correct when they do so.
As noted above, women are often sanctioned for self-advocacy, particularly by other women. One way to address this is a memo that delineates what is expected and encouraged in self-advocacy memos and conversations, outlining the type of information required and describing what is inappropriate self-advocacy. It is important to have female as well as male partners discuss this, given that studies show that women actually are more likely than men to sanction a woman for selfpromotion. The key is to have the partners who are deciding compensation ask: what is my reaction—and would my reaction be the same if partner ABC (a male partner at the woman partner’s level, not just an anonymous man) had written the same thing?
