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Last Friday's Report on Business Magazine excerpted Susan Pinker's new book The Sexual Paradox in an article entitled Legal dropouts

In the article, she argues that no matter how much they pay, law firms just can't hang on to their young female associates. One reason, she explains, is because the environment itself is deeply hostile to family life. "Fed up with the hours and unable to meet brutal work demands even after making partner or after choosing in-house positions that would allow them to work a little less, they'd eventually tossed it all to stay home with fragile children, to start businesses or university degrees that would allow them more control of their time. All successful women, they wanted to work but found law practice unforgiving. One lawyer in her late 40s, Louise Fournier, avowed that if her 19-year-old daughter chose to go into law, she'd go into mourning."

Ms. Pinker was here earlier to talk about the retreat of female lawyers and why even though HR policies are friendlier today, they're no match for a business culture that's deeply hostile to family and women's values.

Susan Pinker is a developmental psychologist and journalist who writes about interpersonal and ethical issues in the workplace in her Problem Solving column in The Globe and Mail. She has worked as a clinical psychologist for 25 years and has taught at the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology at McGill University.

She lives in Montreal with her husband and three children. Her new book, The Sexual Paradox, is available in stores now.

Judith Pereira:
Thank you Susan for joining us today. We've got quite a few question to get through so let's get started with Jill van Vugt from Toronto.

Jill Van Vugt from Toronto writes:
My law firm is willing to talk about strategies for making our workplace more accommodating for women who want to have families. However, the discussion often begins with the suggestion that "you can't have it all." The men at our firm cite the fact that they are unable to spend as much time with their kids as they'd like to. Inevitably, the discussion takes on a tone that women can either choose to be exemplary partners at the firm or they can choose to be exemplary mothers. Ultimately, it's about individual choices.
It is difficult to refute this argument without attacking the underlying culture of legal work. When one gets into "the culture argument" the problem becomes insurmountable because the firm will not sacrifice its own profitability simply to set an example of equality to other firms. Doesn't this bear some truth? Firms will have to sacrifice profitability for equality?
Thank you for your thougths.

Susan Pinker replies:
This situation is comparable to going to a well reviewed restaurant and seeing only one item on the menu. The message that your law firm is giving is that only one option is the right one. As it happens, that option suits only one model of work, the one created for what I call "the vanilla male standard." This standard was set when few lawyers were female, and hasn't been adjusted since. More women than men will take to their heels when they find it doesn't suit their notions of success, but they'll lose some talented men too, if they don't consider options. When law firms or any business hemorrhages talent because they won't adjust, this also affects profits.

There are alternative lenses that are just as valid. For example, some law firms are shifting their reward system to project or file-based work. This often benefits women, who want some flexibility, and less "face time" and can nonetheless be extremely disciplined and productive. Other law firms, though few to date, are taking a leaf from medicine's book, where several highly trained professionals are expected to spell each other during evenings and weekends, using a call system.Law firms are often losing their best talent, people in whom they have invested, not just in the hiring process but in grooming their skills as they develop as professionals. I think that only when firms recognize the impact on the bottom line, though, will they consider alternatives.

E. Glas from Ottawa writes:
I recently read an article about law firms, who are trying to attract new lawyers by changing their methods. Instead of the regular 1,700-hour billing target, some firms are paying by the file. That way you can take on as much or as little work as you want. Do you think these new methods will extend to more law firms and thus entice more women to stay in law?

Susan Pinker replies:
Any shift in the culture that offers more flexibility will attract more women, as research shows that having more control over their time, as well as having a business culture that reflects their values, and colleagues they respect, is what attracts and retains women to high level jobs. It's hard for me to predict the future, but I think the firms that start to offer these options will see more gifted women staying on through the first five years on the job, which is the most vulnerable period for them.

A.S. from Winnipeg writes:
I am a woman who is graduating university and I am considering heading into law school. I am 25 years old. I know that I am unwilling to give up having a family for a job as a lawyer. I am considering going to law school, but perhaps leaving off becoming a lawyer. Would you recommend this? Also could you tell me if there is any chance I could work as a lawyer, but not be forced into working ridiculous hours?

Susan Pinker replies:
There are many jobs you can do with a law degree that don't require working those ridiculous hours. In The Sexual Paradox I profile a brilliant female lawyer who leaves the corporate world after being made partner and having acheived a great deal of success, to work as a lawyer in government. Many other female lawyers choose to work in non profit agencies, as in-house counsel, or to teach in universities--after having discovered that the extreme hours of the corporate world are not for them. When they make these choices they're making trade-offs, as they typically don't earn the high salaries in the non-profit sector as they would as corporate lawyers. But study after study shows that women are willing to make those trade-offs if doing so allows them to satisfy other life goals--such as spending time with family--or having time for cultural activities or community involvement. I also wanted to add that I'd like to encourage you to pursue a legal career if that's what interests you. The field needs talented women and men who are willing to apply their intellectual powers, but also have human and social interests.

Donald Desaulniers from Belleville writes:
Women lawyers can take rather complete control of their work lives if they open up their own solo law practices, and then decide not to get greedy but rather to take on just those types of files that appeal to them, and to accept just the amount of new business that they feel comfortable handling. I am a solo male lawyer who has done pretty much what I suggest above for most of my 35 year career. The main downside of such a practice is the greatly reduced income, because it is just about impossible to make the big bucks while being honest and not working hard. However, I realize that most lawyers today want to work in a larger law firm. It is a quandary how to do that while retaining a manageable work load, but a problem for men as well as women. Solo law practice is a solution to overwork if a lawyer can live with less money.

Susan Pinker replies:
I can't comment on solo practice as a lawyer, but I can as a psychologist. You're right that you can exert more control, and that's all to the good, because you can select your cases. But my experience is that if you're any good at your work you soon get overwhelmed with requests, and it's often hard to keep the volume at a sane level unless you have a partner or a group to share cases. In my experience, it's not always greed that has you booking your agenda tightly but also a sense of responsibility, that is, if there's a service oriented aspect to your work.

That said, solo practice is one of many options to consider. When a profession offers one option and one option only, they will winnow some gifted people, and there will be de facto homogeneity.

Judith Pereira:
We only have time for a couple of more questions. D. Grant from Saskatoon and Joel Harrison from Waterloo have questions about men in the workplace. We're going to end with those two. Thanks to all that have sent in questions.

D. Grant from Sasktoon writes:
I am certain that many women start their own practises and run them the way they wish. Perhaps someone should research why men continue to stay under grueling family-unfriendly conditions when hundreds of intelligent women have been brave enough to leave. Would you know if anyone has?

Joel Harrison from Waterloo, Ontario has a couple of questions:
One: does this article imply family-life is unimportant to male lawyers? And two: Is there a similar trend seen for female physicians?

Susan Pinker replies:
First of all to D. Grant, this is an excellent question and I will start by answering its most concrete aspect. There are many studies about who leaves a corporate legal practice, who stays and why and the best of these to my knowledge have been conducted by two Canadain researchers—Fiona Kay at Queen's and Ronit Dinovitzer at U of T. But on a more general level, the majority of men are more single-minded than the majority of women when it comes to their pursuit of status, and how they apply themselves in competitive spheres in which it easy to track who comes out on top.

There are both biological reasons as well as cultural influences that push many men to work extreme hours at extreme jobs. This is often problematic for their families, their mental heath and vulnerability to early chronic disease and early death. Nonetheless, many men are willing to make those Faustian bargains. Partially, in my view, because evolution has wired them to experience competition and risk differently than women experience them. As I explain in The Sexual Paradox the majority (not all by any means) of women are built for the long haul because their offspring depended on them for survival when there were no baby bottles or daycare centres in the picture. The biological leftovers of that period of human development include a propensity among many women to consider multiple points of view when taking risks (and therefore they take fewer of them), as well as to make social networks a priority.

Luckily for women we are now learning from scientific studies that both perspectives not only help women live longer but also protect their cognitive abilities and promote their happiness.

To Joel,
No I don't think that family life is unimportant to male lawyers. But as you can see from the answer above, fewer male lawyers will sacrifice the astronomical earnings and status to achieve this much-vaunted balance.

You are on the right track when comparing lawyers to physicians. Physicians have managed to work out better work schedules now than they ever have in the past, and I think this is a byproduct of so many female medical students entering the field and establishing their priorities. Unfortunately, some decry this "seminization," of medicine as cause of the doctor shortage in Canada, as opposed to seeing it as a workable model that would go a long way to retaining talent people of both sexes and other demanding careers.

Judith Pereira:
Thank you so much Susan for taking the time to answer our readers' questions.