Sticky Floors, Broken Steps, and Concrete Ceilings in Legal Careers

I. Introduction1Reports of cracks in the glass ceiling of the legal profession have been around for nearly two decades. Many speculate that since women now comprise the new majority of students in U.S. law schools it is only matter of until women control the practice of law.2 A recent ABA Journal poll adds to the perception that the glass ceiling in law practice will soon disappear:A widespread assumption is that barriers have been coming down, women have been moving up, and it is only matter of before full equality becomes an accomplished fact. In the ABA Journal's 2000 poll, only quarter of female lawyers and three percent of male lawyers thought that prospects for advancement were greater for than for women.Thus, it is only a matter of time before women make it to the top of the law firm hierarchy; before women make as much money as in the profession; and before we can move past questions of gender bias in the legal profession.4Certainly the status of women in the profession has improved since the 1970s5 when women began to enter the profession in substantial numbers. But, unfortunately, recent data on the profession suggest that neither changes in the number of female law students nor changes in the number of female associates has substantially changed the profile of the profession.6 Despite the entry of substantial numbers of women and the successes of some exceptional ones,7 women are far more likely to encounter glass and floors than to reach their professional potential. Indeed, most research shows that, still, in arenas culturally defined as male, as most legal environments are, women have harder getting into positions that lead to higher authority. And in virtually every profession we can identify-business, academia, medicine, law, sports-the picture looks the same: earn more money and achieve higher status than women. While differences in education, experience, and hours worked can explain part of the disparity in pay and rank, simply being female continues to play another, more impenetrable, part; men are consistently overrated while women are underrated.8 The discrimination that matters here is not the stuff of bad actors whose removal clears the way for women's equal participation in the profession-although that certainly helps.9 Rather, it is that women continue to be systematically disadvantaged by patterns of behavior, often unconscious or taken for granted, where no one can be technically blamed. Explicit and implicit forms of gender discrimination as well as institutionalized processes and expectations that were designed with in mind means that our expectations for gender equity do not necessarily translate into the choices and actions of gatekeepers to power, authority, and resource control.10 Thus, while it may be wrong to continue to say that the glass is half empty, the glass is certainly not yet half full.This article examines three dimensions of gender disparity: compensation, promotion, and retention/attrition. They are interrelated; inequity in one dimension can produce inequities in the others. Compensation disparity is clearly the foundation of gender disparity. When compensation disparity and promotion disparity are combined, they result in problems of retention. The disparities that occur in these three components result in sticky floors12 on which women get stuck, broken steps on which women fall into traps, and concrete ceilings against which women's advancement rebounds.The data that form the basis of this article include the results of the 1993 Colorado Women's Bar Association (CWBA) analysis of the 1993 Colorado Bar Association's (CBA) Economic Survey and 2000 CBA Economic Surveys as well as one hundred in-depth interviews with Colorado attorneys. Where appropriate, national data are introduced for comparative purposes.II. Study BackgroundA. Gender Penalties, c. 1993In 1993, the Colorado Bar Association and the Colorado Women's Bar Association created survey to assess and compare the economic status of male and female attorneys in Colorado. …

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