Professor Deborah Rhode comments on the lack of progress in achieving gender equality in law firms for Bloomberg BNA.

It’s back to the future — and not in a good way for women seeking equity partnership in the nation’s 200 largest law firms.

Women have not made “appreciable progress” since 2006 in either attaining equity partnership or increasing their pay to be on par with their male colleagues once they grasp the brass ring, according to a study by the National Association of Women Lawyers released on Tuesday.

…

“This new survey highlights the glacial pace in leveling the playing field for women in large firms,” says Deborah L. Rhode, Director, Center on the Legal Profession and E.W. McFarland Professor of Law at Stanford University. “To make progress, we urgently need initiatives on three levels,” she says. These include strategies to address unconscious bias, gender stereotypes, women’s exclusion from informal networks of support and development, and finding ways to reduce work/family conflicts.

Rhode’s thinking is echoed by Liebenberg. “There are a lot of implicit biases,” that hold women back, she says.

While Jones sees the problem in firms primarily as one of “intention on the issue,” she stressed that this is not the time for hand-wringing, but for “renewed commitment.”