I was somewhat taken aback by the headline article in the ABA Journal Weekly Newsletter last Friday: Not One Legal Secretary Surveyed Preferred Working With Women Lawyers. At first I thought not to dignify the headline with a response. I try not to comment on materials or authors when I would be drawing attention to a provocation intended to promote an author or sell papers, rather than to support women lawyers. So this morning I asked my secretary what she thought of the article. And then it dawned on me: The one really good use of the survey by Chicago-Kent law professor Felice Batlan, and the ABA's report, is to stimulate constructive conversations between women lawyers and their secretaries. There are a lot of reasons why women lawyers and their secretaries may not get along, and I don't know whether the survey results are based on some fundamental flaw in women lawyers, their secretaries, or both.
But I do know that good communication between my secretary and me is the one thing that is most responsible for more than a decade of working together. So for all of you out there who wonder what to do with the survey results and the chit chat that will inevitably flow around the legal world from it, here's my recommendation. Send the link on to your secretary and ask her (or him!) what s/he thinks of the article. And then listen carefully to what you hear.
Happy Halloween!
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