Women Lawyers Blog for Workplace Equality: Blogging as a Feminist Legal Method

Legal scholars and academic commentators have long written about the ways in which close-knit communities of people employ extralegal or nonlegal methods to structure conflict, resolve disputes, and advocate for their rights and interests. From cattle ranchers to diamond merchants to Third Wave feminists, scholars emphasize how groups of people opt out of the legal system and instead use personalized and informal methods of rights assertion and dispute resolution as a means of overcoming the ineffectiveness of statesponsored laws, or because they reject the law as a viable means of achieving change. Like these communities, a growing number of women lawyers have developed their own method of rights assertion and dispute resolution that does not involve turning to the legal system. Despite the cottage industry of articles, books, and reports describing the role of gender in the legal profession, few, if any, writings have focused on what women lawyers are actually doing to address the challenges and grievances they face in the workplace, as well as to increase the number of women in leadership positions in the profession. Based on a detailed empirical analysis of women lawyers in law firms, this Article describes how a growing number of women lawyers have rejected the viability of the law as a means of personal advocacy and are instead using blogging-an alternative, informal and impersonal form of engagement-to advocate for their rights and interests in the workplace. One would expect that women lawyers, when confronted with unfair hiring practices, unequal pay, or unjust choices, would turn to the legal t University of Pennsylvania Law School, J.D. expected 2009. University of Pennsylvania, B.A. 2003. For their generous feedback and advising, I thank Professors Anita Allen, Anne Kringel, Gideon Parchomovsky, Robert Solomon, and Amy Wax. In particular, I want to thank Professor Bridget Crawford for taking such an enthusiastic interest in my ideas, reading several drafts of this Article, and providing me with guidance and encouragement. This Article is a tribute to the talented women bloggers who blog about their lives in the workplace. I want to thank all of the bloggers who were willing to take time out of their busy schedules to be interviewed and brave enough to share their personal stories, particularly Elizabeth Pederson, the visionary founder of Ms. JD. I also want to thank the lawyers and legal recruiting staff I interviewed for being so candid about the challenges that remain in the profession, as well as Terra Gearhart-Serna, my editor at the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism. Finally, I am especially grateful to Professor Feldman, my mentor and good friend, for reading several drafts, and for offering his critical comments and wholehearted encouragement. I dedicate this Article to my mother, Emily Fine. Copyright © 2009 by the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism Yale Journal of Law and Feminism system. They are legally trained and undoubtedly immersed in the law, and therefore one might presume that they are particularly attentive to legal rights and predisposed to think of personal grievances within a legal framework. However, these women recognize that the law does not necessarily favor their position or offer a fair conclusion. Thus, they are using the Internet-and, in particular, blogging-to resolve their disputes, address their personal grievances, challenge implicit male bias engrained in the profession, and share and obtain the information they need to become stronger bargainers in the workplace. By asking why women lawyers choose to blog about gender inequality in the profession, this Article reveals a great deal about the unique nature of the workplace challenges women lawyers face today. IN TRO D UCTION 359 I. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION 363 A . A B rief O verview 363 B . M istaken A ssum ptions 365 1. M yth #1: The "Pipeline" Theory 365 2. Myth #2: "There Are Many More Men than Women in L aw F inn s". 366 3. Myth #3: The "Opting-Out" Theory 366 II. W HY W OMEN LAWYERS BLOG 368 A . An Introduction to Blogging 369 B. The "Limited-Means" View of the Legal System 372 C. Institutional Mindset: The "Maternal Wall" and the "All-orN othing" W orkplace 379 D. The Grievance Is Nonlegal in Character 385 E. Blogging Because It's Easier 389 F. C ritiques of B logging 390 III. BLOGGING AS FEMINIST LEGAL METHOD 392 A. Women's Experience and Consciousness Raising 393 B. An Ideological Commitment to Diversity of Voices and V iew points 396 C. Double Binds and Dilemmas of Difference 398 D. Activism from the Ground Up 400 E. Unpacking W omen's Choices 402 F. Blogging as a New Feminist Legal Method 403 IV. THE IMPACT OF BLOGGING ON THE LEGAL PROFESSION 404 C O N CLUSIO N 407 [Vol, 20:357 2009] Women Lawyers Blog for Workplace Equality