Women in Law Firms: Stuck in the Middle

istock_000005017548xsmall1by Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

Fifty-one percent of the U.S. population is female and women have been graduating from law school at the same rate as men for at least 25 years. But when you look at the number of women partners in law firms, the 50/50 split no longer holds.

Certainly the number of female lawyers, and even partners, are growing, but still only one in five big-firm partners are women according to The American Lawyer’s first Women in Law Firms study. Several firms in the study — Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; and Ropes & Gray—are close to having a 50/50 gender split of lawyers. However, the study reports the greatest numbers of female lawyers are still at the associate level.

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Top 10 Professional Networks for Women in Finance

By Marian Schembari (New York City)

The great thing about being a woman in a man’s world is that it brings us closer together. The glass ceiling is difficult and annoying, but women in finance are so scarce that the connections made with each other are usually strong and supportive.

This is why we at The Glass Hammer have put together a list of great associations specifically designed for the ever-so-inspiring women who have taken on the financial world. Some with chapters around the world, others entirely based on the web, we give you (in no particular order) the top 10 networks for women in finance:

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5 Ways To Make Mondays Better

A New WeekBy Elizabeth Harrin (London)

Do you dread Mondays?  Is it always a hassle to get out of bed after the weekend and drag yourself to the office?  It doesn’t have to be like that, says Roxanne Emmerich, CEO of Emmerich Financial, a consulting firm specialising in community banks.  She has a stack of tips in her new book, Thank God it’s Monday!  Here are The Glass Hammer’s favourites, designed to help you start the week with a spring in your step.

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Ask-a-Career-Coach: What Do You Do While You’re Waiting?

jobsearchContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

A lot of the job search is waiting:  drop your résumé and wait for the interview; attend the interview and wait for the decision; attend the second interview and wait for more interviews or the offer.  Many jobseekers ask how long to wait before checking in and how otherwise to maximize the waiting time.

In short, you maximize the waiting time by moving on.  You work on several job search leads concurrently so that, while you are waiting for one, another is invariably moving.  Stopping and starting takes a lot more energy and is far less efficient than moving along systematically.  You can only move systematically when you have multiple leads in play.

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Managing the Business of Asset Management

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stone_house_-_holly_h_miller_-_photo11Contributed by Holly H. Miller, Partner, Stone House Consulting LLC

In the wake of plummeting revenue streams, particularly with client concerns over operational risk and managers’ needs to control costs, the lines between traditional investment managers and hedge funds have blurred and will continue to do so.  Traditional investment managers and hedge funds alike need to focus on the business of managing money as well as the management of the assets.  Though the industry’s historically high margins have allowed managers to pay scant attention to the decidedly unglamorous and hugely complex expense side of the business, they must do so now.  The winners will be those who manage their firms as well as they manage their clients’ portfolios.

While buy-side revenues are driven by assets under management, costs and, ultimately, profit are driven primarily by the number of accounts and secondarily by the number of products or strategies the firm offers.  Even with automation, more accounts or products equate to more people and salaries, typically the single biggest expense item.  This disconnect between revenue and expense drivers frequently went unnoticed by many senior managers because of the industry’s incredible profitability.  That clearly is no longer the case.
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VOE: Kit Chaskin, Partner and Firm-wide Chair of the Women’s Initiative Network of Reed Smith

The Glass Hammer Managing Editor Pamela Weinsaft recently spoke with attorney Kit Chaskin about Chaskin’s path from acting to the legal profession, her thoughts on tackling barriers to the advancement for women in law, and the importance of having a long-term vision for one’s career.

chaskin2cc_3001“I’m a third generation lawyer.  My grandfather hung out a shingle in 1929 and built a small firm in Cleveland, Ohio, which my father joined when he graduated from law school.  We always joked that we used the Socratic Method at our dinner table.  Being a lawyer was very much a part of the fabric of our lives,” said Kit Chaskin, a partner in the Insurance Recovery Group at international law firm Reed Smith and the director of the Women’s Initiative of Reed Smith.

Despite the virtual apprenticeship at an early age, she first pursued a career as an actress.  When she was ready to settle down and find a more financially rewarding career, the law was an obvious choice.  But she knew from day one that she wanted to have a life outside of law. “The fact that I had been out on a totally different career path put some perspective on law school.  I was more of a go-getter because it was such a privilege to be in law school and I appreciated the opportunity.  On the other hand, I had a life and I was already married.  I knew I was not going to put my life on hold until I made partner, which was the prevailing strategy for most of the women I went to law school with.   Read more

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Alternative Careers for Former Wall Street Women

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istock_000007854714xsmall1by Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

Is there life after Wall Street? With unemployment rates at an all time high and the financial industry in turmoil as a result of the economic downturn, some Wall Streeters are considering major career changes. Opportunities exist as long as the former investment types are willing to think outside of the traditional career trajectory to new livelihoods – counter terrorism, for example.

Recently the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been recruiting ex Wall Streeters. The agency seeks economic analysts to assess illicit financial activities, including networks used by terrorist and criminal groups, financing and procurement of weapons of mass destruction, money laundering and corruption among foreign governments and companies. Backgrounds in international finance, banking, or business are part of the requirements. But displaced and discouraged workers can put their backgrounds to work in less dramatic ways too. 

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IBM Businesswoman Balances Demands of Work, MBA Studies, Home to Mentor Other Women

dorit_kagy1By Natalie Sabia (New York City)

Dorit Kagy, a Los Angeles businesswoman, is busy.  While working full time for IBM, working towards an MBA, and working on getting used to being a new mother, she decided she wanted to help others.  While looking for some online volunteer opportunities, she discovered MicroMentor, which would allow her to volunteer from the comfort of her own home, while using her business expertise to help other women in business.  “I think this is the perfect opportunity,” said Kagy.

Founded in 2002, MicroMentor offers business professionals a chance to engage in meaningful volunteer opportunities by helping small business owners take their businesses to the next level.  “MicroMentor is a free online service that connects small business owners with business mentors. Mentors “give back” by sharing their experience and expertise.  [The matching of mentor and mentee is] kind of like online dating,” said Samantha Mafchir, Program Associate at MicroMentor.

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Voice of Experience: Berenice Corral, Vice President of Promotions, Mexican Derivatives Exchange

As part of our on going Voices of Experience series, contributing writer Jessica Titlebaum spoke with this top-ranking executive woman from MexDer on her career in derivatives and balancing work and life.

foto_bere1While studying at the Universidad Panamericana, in Mexico City, Berenice Corral harbored dreams of being an executive woman working for the Mexican Stock Exchange, the owner of Mexican Derivatives Exchange (MexDer), but never imagined those dreams would ultimately come true.  Corral had to overcome many challenges on the path to success, including her very difficult financial engineering classes at university.  

After graduating with a degree in business and finance, Corral joined Scotia Bank Inverlat, a global brokerage house in Mexico.  She was responsible for developing an international procedural manual and supervised every transaction that took place from their New York office.  While at Inverlat, Corral never gave up on her goal of working at the Mexican Stock Exchange.  So when, about a year later, she was offered the opportunity to work in the Exchange’s market development department, she jumped at the chance. 

From there, she moved into a role at SIF ICAP, a joint venture between the Mexican Stock Exchange and ICAP, where she was responsible for developing new products including a fixed income trading platform very similar to the Mexican Stock Exchange’s electronic equity system. 

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The Need for Women Leaders on Wall Street

Wall Stby Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

What if there were more women leaders on Wall Street? This is the question raised by a new report from The National Council for Research on Women, a network of 120 leading U.S. research, policy and advocacy centers. The report, entitled “Women in Fund Management: Achieving Critical Mass and Why It Matters,” takes a close look at the lack of women in leadership roles in fund management.

Today, only 16 percent of executive and board positions in the financial services are held by women and just 10 percent of fund managers are women. In fact, in 2008, women managed only three percent of the approximately $1.9 trillion invested in hedge funds. These low numbers don’t align with the number of women in the workplace, the number of women who own businesses, or the amount of wealth represented by women. Almost half of all workers in the U.S., and one third of all business owners, are women. And women comprise 43 percent of all Americans with gross assets of $1.5 million or more.

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