Accommodation is the key strategy that society has used to attack disability discrimination. I can say from personal experience that accommodation works. In the case of gender discrimination, I believe that a strong policy of required accommodation to the demands of child and elder care will also work to address the practical fact that the burden of these activities falls disproportionately on women. In the same vein, we need to develop the attitude that the lawyers working part-time, men or women, should be able to treat the child or elder care demands that led to the part time arrangement as a very good reason to decline a conflicting assignment. These demands should be as good a reason for the lawyer to be unable to help out as would be the conflict of having to take a deposition in Seattle.
Accommodation also helps to improve the quality of life for all lawyers.
Quality of life improvement for all follows from another key strategy to promote diversity, mentoring. But while mentoring is a key benefit for all new lawyers, mentoring of lawyers from underrepresented groups should be a special focus. As Duke Law School Professor James Coleman Jr. has said, affirmative action really begins when the underrepresented lawyer is hired. That being said, I must point with special pride to the recent report of our Special Committee on the Lawyer's Quality of Life. The two themes that run through this excellent report are the need for and benefits of individualized attention and open communication.