Women Face Challenges Making Partner in Law Firms

Drazen Zigic via Getty Images

---

---

Questions from Mentee to Mentor

1. What unique challenges do women face in making partner/being partner? What advice would you have for women who also would like to be on the partner track?

Making partner and being a successful partner in a law firm is a challenge for any lawyer, regardless of gender. It requires the individual to show legal skill (the baseline), productivity over many years (i.e., hours billed; a proxy for the demand for your time), commitment to developing your public reputation through marketing, speaking, and external relationship-building (in addition to your “day job” of lawyering), and a level of service to the firm and your colleagues. It takes thousands of hours of practice, significant investment of your personal time and energy, and a willingness to handle setbacks or unpleasant situations with grit and without losing your cool.

That said, there can be incremental challenges in women making partner and succeeding as a partner. Assuming the traditional “path” to partnership in a law firm, an associate is taking their big steps to demonstrate their partner-”worthiness” in their six, seventh, and eighth years of practice, which, for many, are also the same years in which they may be having children or attending to aging parents, or both. It is important for younger lawyers to appreciate that your career is long and that you must invest your time and energy well throughout your career journey -- especially in your early years -- to set yourself up for long term success. Your reputation is not built overnight, and it requires constant tending. If you have cultivated a reputation over the years for working hard, being engaged and reliable, then you will be more likely to find yourself in a place where you have greater flexibility and autonomy years down the line when you need it. You will have developed the skills in prioritization (to know what’s truly urgent and/or important) and the relationships with your colleagues and team (to get things done collaboratively, even in your absence).

To be on the partner track, and to excel as a partner once you achieve the title, requires keeping an eye on both the immediate and the bigger picture. You must devote the care and effort necessary to achieve your clients’ immediate objectives, capably working the case that is in front of you at the present moment. But at the same time, you must also invest the time in developing your relationships with your peers -- your fellow associates today and, hopefully, your fellow future partners or clients -- and your paralegals, assistants and other professional staff at the firm. All of these people may be in a position to help you in the future. You may not know when you’ll need emergency help on a Sunday afternoon to cite check a summary judgment brief due on Monday, or a nice turn of phrase from your marketing team mentioning you in an awards submission, or someone willing to go the extra mile for you and work with travel agent or airline so that you can avoid delays from a cancelled flight on your way home from an out of town deposition. Like all relationships, these take time and intentionality over many years. It may be considered trite to say “it’s all about balance” -- because it doesn’t feel that way in the moment. You will feel like you are having to do all of it all the time. But making the investments throughout your early career will pay greater and greater dividends as you progress.

---

---

---

---

2. In what part of your day to day work do you think you’ve seen the most bias against women or faced the most challenges because of your gender?

In my experience, there are two principal areas where I observe biases that are largely -- but not exclusively -- related to gender: assumptions about availability and commitment due to caregiving/family obligations, and perceptions around confidence and competence resulting from speaking style or demeanor.

Let me start by stating the obvious -- working on high-stakes antitrust matters, particularly in a law firm environment (but also likely true on the government side too) -- is extremely demanding. The cases are often make-or-break M&A deals, or reputation-threatening criminal investigations, or class actions that involve claims for financial damages or injunctive relief that could put a company out of business. There is time pressure from short deadlines, multiple strategic decisions that often must be made quickly, and understandably nervous clients who require frequent communication. Because these matters are so critical to our clients, we are frequently engaged with the seniormost members of the client’s legal team as well as the C-suite. These stakeholders expect to have access to their advisors at their convenience, which presents a challenge to those advisors’ ability to have reliably predictable schedules.

Unpredictable and intense demands on your time are difficult to manage for anyone. And that difficulty is magnified when you also have competing obligations to care for family members, including children. Nevertheless, assumptions are often made by senior assigning attorneys that women with children will be less available or less committed to their work, and in an unconscious but often well-meaning way, permit mothers to miss out on opportunities to work on difficult, intense matters that could contribute to their future career success. Now that I find myself in the senior lawyer role, making decisions about what associates to assign on my cases, I try to be as thoughtful and inclusive as possible when making decisions about assignments. In many respects, it is encouraging to see many of the younger male associates who are parents taking active caregiving roles, and I aim to be mindful about their family obligations in making assignments just as much as I am with female team members with similar obligations. At the same time, we as senior lawyers cannot simply assume that just because a more junior member on our team is single or childless, that he or she is always best placed to take on that Friday night assignment or can travel at the drop of a hat. Decisions around assignments and opportunities are often seen as quotidian in the moment, but stepping back, many of these choices can have profound impacts on someone’s career trajectory. It is incumbent on those assigning attorneys to be fair and communicative as they approach those decisions.

The second major area where bias can creep into day to day legal practice is the perception of women lawyers based on the way they present themselves and their “likeability”. Numerous scholars have written about the double bind that women in the workforce face between being perceived as competent or as likable. To achieve success as a law firm partner (or, indeed, almost any professional organization), both qualities are critical to your success. You must be competent enough to do the required work and achieve the results needed for your clients, but you also must be sufficiently likeable to motivate your team, to get hired by clients, and to productively work with your partners and colleagues. There is, though, incongruity between the traditional female traits of warmth, caring and agreeableness with those viewed as necessary for success in the law or business -- assertiveness, confidence. Thus, women are regularly perceived as likeable but not competent, or competent but not likeable.

In an associate’s earlier years of practice, expectations are often different than they are in the later years of your career. Partners and more senior lawyers are often happy to have associates (in particular, female associates) quietly churning out quality work without raising their voices or challenging the authority or strategy of the more senior lawyers on the team. Put simply, they are rewarded for being quiet and doing what they are told. As a lawyer becomes more senior, however, she is expected to take on greater responsibility for speaking to external parties (e.g., opposing counsel, clients) or more senior people within their organization. In those situations, she is expected to have a clear strategy and assertively advocate for her position. Many women lawyers (myself included) have struggled to evolve from skillfully executing on someone else’s directive to developing those strategic directives yourself and motivating others to follow along. As leaders of law firms and mentors to junior lawyers, we must work to teach both the skills that our associates need to perform the work competently, we must also give them the chance and support to exercise their leadership muscles so that they can be effective when the time comes to effectively act as strategists and advocates for their firms or their clients.

3. As one of the first or few in certain rooms, how did you learn to lead without having many models to follow? And was there a moment when you realized you were no longer just navigating the system, but actually shaping it?

Oddly enough, having few female models at my own firm coming up as an associate was not necessarily a bad thing in retrospect. I was able to observe and absorb lessons from many people around me -- male partners that I worked for, lawyers working as co-counsel across the table, government lawyers at the FTC or DOJ who were investigating my clients’ deals, or even lawyers that I was interacting with in my ABA Antitrust Section volunteer duties. Looking broadly, it became clear to me that there is no one way to be a successful lawyer or leader. You have to embrace your own strengths and attributes, but you must also be cognizant that you exist in a world where you must work with and be viewed by others. Basically, be the best version of yourself.

In terms of leading teams, I found the most effective approach to be: (i) be organized and methodical, setting forth the work streams, steps and timelines/deadlines to achieve an outcome, and (ii) treat others on the team with the same level of respect that I would want them to treat me. That means knowing the tasks and goals so you can set realistic deadlines, being mindful of putting the right people on projects so they can work together successfully, giving some team members the opportunity to stretch themselves and grow their skill (while making sure that they are adequately supported), having regular touchpoints, and still making room to laugh and embrace one another’s humanity. This has become more challenging as the world has evolved to more virtual engagement -- e.g., video calls instead of in-person team meetings. The best teams that I have been a part of have been ones in which members have an awareness of each other as people, their strengths and weaknesses, and what motivates them to do their best work. While not impossible to do virtually (and I love a great Teams group chat), that relationship building is often forged working side by side or down the hall from your teammates, day in and day out. And if you’re working cross-office, it means going the extra mile to engage with those people who you can’t be physically present with. As I approach my role leading my teams, I strive to be present around the office as much as possible. You can find me at the coffee machine chatting about our summer associate recruiting efforts, or standing in my partner’s office doorway, game-planning our upcoming white paper or debriefing that last FTC call. Achieving great outcomes in antitrust cases and building a successful firm is not an individual sport.

An approach to leading teams that acknowledges people’s humanity, strengths, and weaknesses is one that, earlier in my career journey, made practical sense to me. How else was I going to get people to go along with my plan? Even as a senior associate, I had observed enough to know that simply giving orders to a bunch of type-A, independent-minded, smart people was not going to work. I had to ensure that there was consensus around the ultimate objective and core elements of the plan, and then put people in the right roles and give them the autonomy and resources to get it done. This isn’t to say it always gets done perfectly or without friction. That’s part of life. But my experience has shown me that it’s the optimal path. I’ve continued to build on that approach as I have grown into my role in firm leadership, and it drives me forward to today.

4. Looking ahead, what do you believe will be the defining challenges, and opportunities, for the next generation of antitrust leaders?

The practice of law is evolving rapidly every day with advances in generative AI and agentic AI, and antitrust is not immune from those changes and the attendant pressures. The new capabilities brought forth by technology increases expectations on the part of clients, but there are also greater opportunities to use these technologies to improve our understanding of our clients’ businesses and the markets in which they operate, and to deliver valuable advice and service to our clients. Those lawyers who can embrace the opportunities presented by this new technology, exploring creative ways to employ it to deepen their understanding of the facts of a case or streamline previously time-consuming tasks to focus more on weightier strategic questions, will position themselves at the forefront of the next generation of leaders in the practice of antitrust law.

At the same time, leaders within organizations are currently grappling with the challenges of trying to maximize the contributions of a diverse workforce, motivating and getting the best out of individuals across generations and life experiences who, research suggests, share different values as it relates to the role of work and achievement in their life. Current leaders and the future generations of leaders will need to approach our organizations and the people that comprise them with an open mind, respect, and creative thinking -- including a willingness to try novel approaches, which can be even harder in a business as tradition-bound, risk-averse, and resistant to change as the law.

Questions from Mentor to Mentee

1. As a woman of color, what do you wish senior lawyers understood about the additional challenges you face as well as the differentiated value that you can deliver to your team?

As a woman of color practicing antitrust law, I often walk away from interactions wondering, “Was that disrespectful, or am I overthinking it?” Frequently, I tell myself it’s the latter. I often excuse others' microaggressions because it feels "easier" to dismiss them than to confront the reality of the situation. While not exhaustive or representative of all women of color, three main challenges come to mind.

First, is the erasure of my identity. I am frequently called by a name that is not mine – either I’m confused with other South Asian associates, or I’m addressed by my last name instead of my first. Although I politely correct people by saying, “Actually, my name is Sandhya,” and I tell myself there is no malicious intent, I face an added burden to constantly demand basic respect. This creates the emotional labor of navigating spaces where I’m the minority, while simultaneously creating a “tax” of leading the diversity efforts intended to make those spaces navigable.

Second, is the “prove it again” dynamic. I often find myself in a cycle of having to repeatedly demonstrate my expertise in spaces where others are given the benefit of the doubt. I must not only perform the high-level legal work expected of an antitrust attorney but also manage the emotional labor of proving I belong in the room at all. There is a persistent expectation that I must be near-perfect to justify my value to a project.

Third, events like pandemics, economic downturns, and shifts in the legal landscape disproportionately impact women of color because of systemic inequities, and the workplace is not exempt from these mental and physical burdens. As an immigrant, the current climate regarding immigration enforcement adds a layer of hypervigilance to my daily life. When commuting to the office or walking around D.C., I am acutely aware of the risk of officers targeting people who look like me. Recent data shows immigrant adults report experiencing heightened stress and anxiety specifically due to increased enforcement activity, which acts as an additional mental bandwidth tax. Our jobs are demanding for everyone, but these are added weights I carry before I even open my laptop.

While these hurdles are significant, they also distill into a unique professional advantage. My experiences have developed in me a highly tuned sense of situational awareness. My upbringing as a South Asian woman has made me a more collaborative teammate; I am instinctively attentive to the needs of my colleagues. Based on my personal challenges and experiences, I am more attuned to the inclusion, morale, and power dynamics within a case team. This allows me to raise critical issues that others might overlook and manage teams in a way that ensures everyone is heard. I work hard to ensure others feel seen and create a more positive and uplifting environment. Furthermore, my ability to code-switch, discerning when to conform and when to authentically show up, gives me the ability to navigate a system that was not designed for me. My goal is to foster full recognition of both the hurdles and the strategic advantages that come with diverse lived experiences.

2. What is the one organizational initiative or culture shift you would want to see implemented to ensure your generation feels even more empowered and inspired to step into leadership?

I have realized that my generation is highly motivated, but we want clarity, accountability, and a sense that leadership is attainable through demonstrated skill, not subjective mystery. I have been fortunate enough to gain meaningful ownership early on in my career and have had the opportunity to work with different types of leaders who value collaboration, empathy, and cross-functional thinking. I have also been fortunate enough to receive both formal (and informal) mentorship and active sponsorship since my early days at the firm.

One organizational shift I’d want to see implemented across the industry would be a more transparent path to leadership. Specifically, I believe we can demystify the “black box” of partnership by providing clear, concrete examples of what “business development readiness” looks like. By having early exposure to client strategy, pricing, and pitch discussions, associates can evolve from being great technicians to being strategic advisors who better understand “the business of the business” long before they reach the finish line.

3. What are the skills or concepts that, looking back, you wish you had learned in law school to better prepare you for your practice today?

Reflecting on my last five years as an attorney, I’ve found that while law school provides the necessary intellectual foundation, there are several "soft" and lateral skills that are only truly forged in the heat of practice. If I could go back, I would have sought more structured training in the practicalities of client and team management, the nuance of writing for diverse audiences, and the art of authentic networking. These are the functional pillars that often determine how effectively we can apply the legal theories we spent years studying.

While law school is excellent at teaching issue-spotting and legal fluency, there is a distinct gap between academic theory and the day-to-day realities of practice. Looking back, I’ve realized that it would be immensely beneficial to include coursework on client management. Specifically, new associates could use guidance on how to manage expectations, deliver bad news transparently, or navigate the nuances of a difficult personality within a high-stakes environment.

Beyond client relations, I wish I had been exposed to the mechanics of management within case teams. The Peter Principle suggests that good lawyers are not necessarily natural managers, yet we are often promoted based solely on our legal acumen. When I transitioned into a mid-level role, I was quickly thrown into situations where I had to manage complex cases and supervise junior attorneys. It is the kind of skill you rarely appreciate until you are working under someone who has mastered the art of delegation and upward management, or, conversely, someone who struggles to provide that necessary structure.

Another area for growth is the ability to adapt writing for different audiences. Coming from a clerkship, a lot of my writing was in the form of neutral legal opinions and non-biased recitations of the relevant factors at play. However, the “real-world" requires a broader range; there is a significant difference between academic legal writing, persuasive briefs, client-facing emails, and strategic regulatory submissions. Mastering the tone for each is essential for success.

Finally, I think law schools could do more to teach how to properly network with authenticity. Entering the antitrust community, it’s vital to learn how to build long-term relationships in a way that feels genuine and not merely transactional. Developing those professional bonds is what truly sustains a career in the long run.

4. What are the qualities that make someone an effective role model or mentor in law firm practice? Being a junior associate can be very hard work. What is it that encourages you to continue pursuing a path towards becoming a partner in a law firm?

I’ve been fortunate enough in my career thus far to have mentors and role models who don’t necessarily share my exact background. This has actually been an advantage, as I’m able to embody the traits I respect and thoughtfully tweak the traits that are less helpful to my own personal style. There are several qualities that jump out at me.

First, an effective mentor is someone who has sat in your seat. The best mentors are the ones who have done what you're doing; because they have done the work, they deeply understand the technical and logistical obstacles you may face. This perspective allows them to give you clear instructions and the specific tools needed for you to succeed. Furthermore, they are people who really get into the work itself and master the facts, demonstrating that even at the senior level, excellence is rooted in the details.

Second, they are someone who invests their time in you. Though these leaders care a great deal about the work – both the intellectual rigor and the work product itself – they demonstrate that intensity and humanity can co-exist. Effective role models and mentors give direct, honest, and actionable feedback and share candid stories about their own experience and hardship. They also make themselves available to the junior attorney, who feels empowered to ask questions without fear of judgment. Crucially, this investment is built on the faith that after giving someone an assignment, there is an inherent trust that the associate can do the work well without needing to be micromanaged. This autonomy is the greatest gift a mentor can provide to boost a junior attorney’s professional confidence.

Third, the most impactful mentors are the ones who advocate for you in rooms that you're not in, championing your capabilities to a broader group, whether it’s the senior team, the partnership, or the client. These mentors don't just stop at advocacy, though; they follow through by inviting you to be a part of those rooms and consistently suggesting your name for stretch opportunities that push you outside of your comfort zone. One easy example is Jeny asking me to assist with this panel, or other partners including me in client pitches because they see my work ethic and dedication to the work.

While being an associate can be very hard work with a steep learning curve, I am motivated to continue pursuing a path towards partnership when I see the direct impact of the mentorship I’ve received. When you have a mentor who models how to balance high-stakes litigation with genuine professional development, then the “partner” title stops being just a goal and starts being a platform. I am motivated by the desire to one day provide the same level of advocacy and intellectual partnership for the next generation of associates. That training begins now. As an associate, I invest in the success of my colleagues and the firm, mentor newer associates, share knowledge generously, and put the team’s success above my own. I try to manage more junior associates with clarity, empathy, and grace, and balance accountability with genuine care for their development. Knowing that I am being actively prepared not just to do the work, but to lead the work, makes the challenges of the associate years feel like a meaningful investment in a long-term career.

---

Endnotes

---

Authors

Jeny M Maier

Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider LLP

I am the Managing Partner of Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider, and an active partner in the firm's antitrust practice group, resident in the Washington, D.C. office. My practice focuses on antitrust counseling; in particular,...

View Bio →

Sandhya Taneja

Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider LLP

Sandhya Taneja is an antitrust associate at Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider LLP. Her practice focuses on merger analysis, civil litigation, and antitrust counseling and compliance. Sandhya represents both U.S. and...

View Bio →

---

Authors

Jeny M Maier

Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider LLP

Sandhya Taneja

Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider LLP

---

Committees

This content was produced by:

• Diverse Perspectives and Engagement Committee

Related Content