Generosity matters. During this season of Thanksgiving, I want to thank you for all your women's bar association does to make the world a better place. It is humbling to watch and get reports of the amazing things women attorneys and women bar associations are doing - feeding the poor, participating in voter registration campaigns, helping women with immigration, domestic violence, and sexual harassment claims, being innovators and signing up to serve on not only your board but community boards and commissions.  What you do in your own state or province strengthens us all. I very much appreciate being "sisters in law" with you.

PROGRAM OFFERING

There is no charge to register for the ABA midyear meeting in Las Vegas, January 23-28. This is a great opportunity for in-person meetings with colleagues from all over the US and beyond. For more information about the meeting, click here. We hope you will join us for a GOOD Guys program on Friday afternoon, January 25. We will have more details soon!

TIP FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION

Holiday parties are a fun time to have present exchanges and also a great opportunity to try a business card exchange. This can also be a pretty impressive photo opportunity to see stacks of your member's business cards all lying out together on tables. If you have done a business card exchange we would love to have you send us a picture. Adding a business card exchange can be as simple as encouraging each attendee to bring business cards that exceed potential attendance and everyone lays their cards out on tables and guests can come by and pick up the cards they wish. You can add to the event and help attendees start their own networking binders (the proverbial little back book of contacts) by having your organization purchase or suggest the purchase of 3-ring binder business card pages. The Avery product number for a 10 pack is 76009. Any business supply store will have generic versions and also the ability to buy in larger packs. I would encourage the organization to gather and start its own book. You may want to create a couple sections. I would encourage 3 business cards for the organization so you can have a section that is alphabetical, a section by firm names and a section by type of law. Electronic versions can also be set up but there is still something amazingly satisfying in seeing female attorneys that you have in your organization by looking at their physical personalized business card.

TIP FOR YOU

W.I.N. - "W"hat's "I"mportant "N"ow.   This is a phrase I keep at my desk and repeat to myself often. It is a phrase that I picked up about a decade ago from our now retired court of appeals judge Christel Marquardt. She said sometimes to "win" she needed to be in the bleachers watching her boys play ball. Sometimes to "win" she needed to be at home writing a brief while they played ball, and sometimes to "win" she needed to be in the bleachers and studying at the same time. Such a small phrase can re-task us to the most important thing we need to be doing at the moment to win. We are lawyers so I know you like to win! 

CHALLENGE

Share the types of service projects your bar association does throughout the year. Send to info@NCWBA.org,

Each year, we recognize significant accomplishments of member associations in their work on behalf of the public and their own members. In giving awards to programs which we think are particularly effective and unique, we hope to inspire others to create similar programs, as well as to honor the good work of the volunteers.   Nominations are now being accepted for the 2019 Public Service and Outstanding Member Program Awards, to be presented at the Women's Bar Leadership Summit in San Francisco on Friday, August 9. For more information and a nomination form, click here.     Nominations will be accepted by email only until Friday, February 8 at 9:00 pm PST. Questions? Email us.

2018 Outstanding Member Program Award Recipient Tennessee Lawyers' Association for Women

IANGEL is seeking nominations of individuals who have achieved professional excellence and have made an outstanding contribution to the promotion and protection of women's rights; exhibited courage in overcoming injustice and advancing gender equality; opened doors for women to opportunities that historically were closed to them; and have shown dedication to social justice. The award is given in memory of Amel Zenoune-Zouani, an Algerian law student who was murdered in 1988 for refusing to give up her studies. For more information about the award, click here.

If you are looking for a project for your organization that is fun, collaborative, competitive and of service to your members and the wider community, start a Food from the Bar campaign! Although a campaign can take place any time of year, springtime is an especially good time to replenish the shelves of food banks in advance of summertime when children typically can't participate in school-based meal programs. For more information, including a downloadable PowerPoint presentation from our November webinar, click here. For more information and inspiration, contact Kathleen McDowell, who would be happy to brainstorm with you about how to adapt the program to the needs of your community.

The ABA Women Trailblazers Project, a collection of oral histories of 106 senior women attorneys and judges who practiced in the 1970s or earlier, has now been digitized, and many of the histories are now accessible on the Stanford Law School Robert Crown Law Library Website.The collection is also physically housed at the the Robert Crown Law Library at Stanford, the Library of Congress, and the Schlesinger Library at Harvard. Check to see if a member of your women's bar association is featured, and consider adding a link to your own history page.

In 1869, Arabella Babb Mansfield was admitted to the Iowa Bar after passing the bar exam with high marks and successfully challenging Iowa's restriction that only males over the age of 21 were eligible for bar admission, making her the first woman to be admitted to a state bar. This means that in 2019, we will celebrate 150 years of women lawyers in the United States! To commemorate this landmark, the NCWBA is joining with Faircount Media Group to create a publication that our member organizations will be able to share with their own membership in hard copy or by electronic link. If you would like information about placing an advertisement in the publication, please contact Robin Jobson.

We hope to have articles recounting the history and significant milestones of your women's bar group, information about important women lawyer "firsts" from your region, and other articles which capture and preserve the significant history of women lawyers in the United States and Canada. The publication will be introduced at our 2019 Women's Bar Leadership Summit in San Francisco, with a submission deadline in Spring 2019. Articles may be up to a maximum of about 3000 words in length. High-quality photos are also welcome. Submissions are subject to editing and space limitations. Many groups have history committees or have already written their histories, so they have a good starting point for creating articles that explain their histories to a national audience. If you don't already have these resources, now would be a great time to start gathering materials! Let us know what questions you have. We look forward to learning more about the history of women lawyers, both individually and collectively. For research materials, see our history pages.

Long-time executive director Diane Rynerson will be retiring in 2019, which means we are now searching for the right person who will bring us energy, dedication and passion for the success of women's bar associations in the years to come. Please think about who might be a good fit for this position which has flexible, part-time hours, and let them know about the opening. Anyone reading this newsletter is likely to know a possible candidate!  Click here for detailed information about the position and the application requirements. Early applications are encouraged, but applications will be accepted until Thursday, January 31 at 11:59 pm PST.

According to new analysis of historical wage data by the Institute for Women's Policy Research, the lifetime earning gap for women could be as much as 50%. You can download the full report here. The researchers found that the effect of taking just one year away from paid work during the 15-year period between 2001 and 2015 resulted in a 39% difference in wages from those women who worked all years during that period. Notably, the same comparison with the 15-year period beginning in 1968 resulted in a 12% gap. 

Although there are many reasons why someone might take a year away from paid work, there is no doubt that parenting, and not just pregnancy, is a leading cause. Click here for How to Break the Maternal Wall, Brick by Brick. The struggle to balance a legal career with the challenges of parenting is something which women's bar groups must continually address through advocacy for paid parental leave, accommodations for nursing mothers, and truly flexible work hours. Creating meaningful accommodations for parents which don't foster resentment and valid complaints of overwork by others in the firm is challenging, but women's bar groups are well suited to gather and disseminate information about best practices.This work must be supported by the association as a whole, not simply left solely to those who are currently in the midst of active parenting.

Women's bar associations can facilitate connections among lawyer parents by providing meet-ups and family-friendly events. It is a great service to parents to provide opportunities for them to be able to discuss parenting challenges with others outside their firm or practice area.

As you look forward to creating and improving programs and services for 2019, ensure that deliberate and  well publicized support of lawyer parents is an important part of your planning.