Celebrating Two of LA’s History-Making Female Lawyers

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iStock_000002362162XSmallBy Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

Twelve of the nation’s largest law firms are centrally located in the city of Los Angeles and according to numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 556,790 lawyers in California – not including those who are self-employed. As a lawyer, making a name for yourself in this city may not be the easiest of tasks, but if you’re incredibly dedicated to your work, your clients, and your profession – such as the women heralded by the Los Angeles Times as the city’s Women Leaders in the Law – chances are, you’ll make a name for yourself.

The supplement to the Times featured a number of Los Angeles’ top female lawyers, including a revered firm’s first female attorney and a lawyer who was behind a landmark civil rights case. Let’s get to know Amy Fisch Solomon and Deborah Chang, two lawyers who took a different path to making history.

Amy Fisch Solomon, Girardi Keese

If it weren’t for a severe injury, Amy Solomon’s life might have turned out much differently. In third grade she made a deal with her mother: her mom would continue to pay for ballet lessons if Solomon promised to work hard in school and always have something to fall back on. The deal continued well after high school when Solomon began dancing professionally, but after sustaining an injury, she was forced to reevaluate her life. “I enrolled in college and was Pre-Med my first year. I decided that it was too much science and not enough ‘people stuff,’ so I focused on preparing to go to law school,” Solomon said.

Only a former dancer, still in love with the art, could equate her performances on the stage with her performance in front of a jury. “From the beginning I always knew I wanted to be a trial lawyer because of the similarity of performing as a dancer,” Solomon said. “It was the same idea: connecting with an audience to tell them a story that will move them. When I discovered that I could tell stories for people who had no voice – ‘the little guy’ – I was immediately drawn to that area.”

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The Softer Side of Finance

dollars.JPGContributed by Kathleen Burns Kingsbury


The financial services industry has been on a rollercoaster ride since last fall when markets tumbled and the world was reminded that what goes up must come down. Many advisors have lost jobs, changed careers or in some unfortunate cases taken their lives over the turbulent market place. But there are many advisors who have risen to the challenge in this time of crisis, held their clients’ hands and helped them navigate the emotional ups and downs of the global economy. It is not surprising that many of these successful advisors are women and that a historically male dominated industry is now getting in touch with its feminine side.

The Female Advantage

According to G. Scott Budge, Ph.D, the author of the book The New Financial Advisor: Strategies for Successful Family Wealth Management, the new competitive frontier for financial advisors is centered on building and managing client relationships. Active listening, building trust and understanding what a client needs both emotionally as well as financially are paramount in this new world. And who better to do this than female advisors. By nature, women are relationship oriented and excel at helping others. Never before has the softer side of finance been more important and, according to some female advisors, a real advantage to growing a successful practice.

“I love to hear people’s stories,” says Eileen Burkhart, CFP, Principal of Eileen Burkhart & Company. She uses these stories to learn more about her clients, their values and what makes them tick. Kim Zwick, a CPA turned Personal Financial Specialist and owner of Full Circle Financial believes women are good at gathering information and multitasking. In an industry with so many bits and pieces this goes a long way toward being an effective financial advisor. Kim believes that in this field you need to sweat the small stuff.

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Profile: Women Corporate Directors

by Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

It may be hard for some to believe, but an organization that now has a global network of 525 high-powered members who serve on 675 boards began rather humbly with a home-cooked meal around a small dinner table in a New York City apartment. Susan Stautberg, President of PartnerCom Corporation, first began her organization Women Corporate Directors (WCD) in 1999. The premise: to bring together like-minded women who serve as directors of corporations for a communal meal and some shared advice.

Janet Clarke, President of Clarke Littlefield, has been with the organization since its inception and can attest to the fact that times have definitely changed. “We used to sit around this tiny table in Susan’s apartment, talk business, and eat the dinner she’d prepared. At the time, there was always a dog around that we could feed our scraps to,” Clarke said. Major changes in leadership, locale and structure have since taken place, but one thing is for certain: Stautberg has created a truly unique community for executive women.

WCD co-founder Alison Winter, founding President and CEO of President of Personal Financial Services in the Northeast for multi-bank holding company Northern Trust Corp, became fast friends with Stautberg after a chance meeting at a Committee of 200 conference in Washington D.C. After a little convincing, Winter decided to join Stautberg in creating what, at the time, was treated as nothing more than a dinner series. “Susan was doing the dinners in New York and, after enough heckling, I decided to start a chapter in Chicago. It quickly became clear that Susan was the entrepreneur with the creative ideas and I was the corporate executive. I wanted the organization to have formal structure and cohesion, so I began working on a logo with my company’s graphics department,” said Winter.

Around 2004, formal requirements for membership were put in place. Members are usually very senior, influential executives (Chairmen, CEO’s, COO’s and other C-level executives) and on average, serve on 3-4 major corporate and/or non-profit boards. 85 percent of the women in WCD are directors of public or large private company boards, while the other 15 percent have or will soon serve on public boards and currently serve on private, mutual funds or major non-profit boards. All members of the organization are either hand-picked or recommended and they represent a dizzying array of industries; some serve as directors of both the New York and NASDAQ Stock Exchanges, while others hold top positions at recognizable American companies such as Black and Decker and Hormel Foods.

Maryann Bruce, who is the President of Aquilla Distributors and acts as WCD’s Charlotte, NC co-chapter chair, is a prime example of how the organization brings women together. “I am also a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and I must say, it’s very male-dominated and I often feel like I can’t relate to my peers there. With WCD, I can relate to many of the women concerning a whole host of things that are relevant not just to women, but to professional women with high-powered jobs.” WCD became an official organization in 2002, but even in its earliest stages, it was clear that the fledgling dinner series would be for women exclusively. “The dialogue is different when it’s just women; women are able to get into deep conversations when they feel the environment is safe and supportive, rather than competitive,” Winter said.

In addition to its new chapters in Atlanta, Boston, and San Francisco, WCD is going global with new chapters set to open in Beijing, Hong Kong, Lima, and London. Says Clarke, “There’s no other organization out there just for women that’s networking on a global level. Despite the size of the network, our meetings are small, private, intimate affairs that have a very nurturing environment.”

The chapter dinners, which are held three to four times a year, give the member women a chance to network, share ideas, and get to know other women with similar positions in varying industries. “I really like that the meetings are private and ‘off-the-record’,” Clarke said. “We often discuss classified information pertaining to our individual boards; it’s nice to share, receive advice, and just let your hair down and speak freely.”

Even though each dinner begins with a cocktail hour, potential members shouldn’t expect a casual dinner filled with socializing. As a matter of fact, after cocktails, it’s strictly business. “We purposely host each dinner around one large table so that it’s reminiscent of a business meeting. Of course, it’s nice to see each other, but once dinner begins, all chit-chat ends,” Winter said.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about WCD is not that they are all women in high-ranking corporate positions but, rather, despite their great success, they are still hungry to learn how to be better board directors. And while the dinners are primarily about sharing new ideas and attaining knowledge, for many members, the organization has become more than that – it has become a safe place where ideas can be exchanged without fear of judgment, a place that inspires, and, perhaps most importantly, a place where lifelong friendships are made.

“WCD has provided inspiration and encouragement like I’ve never encountered before. Sure, women are underrepresented as corporate directors, but getting to know all of these highly successful, high-powered women has shown me that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. This organization helps advance women and for me, it’s not just a business association; it’s become a personal association. I have made good friends with women in similar professions that literally live in my neighborhood and not only wouldn’t I have known that they existed, but I could have never become friends with them any other way,” Bruce said.

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The Glass Ceiling: Who Said That?

WkingWomenCover_sm_1_.jpgby Paige Churchman (New York City)

We all talk about the glass ceiling, but do you know when the term began? Or whom we have to thank for it? Take a guess:

A) In 1971, Gloria Steinem coined the term in the premiere issue of Ms. Magazine.

B) Carol Hymowitz and Timothy Schellhardt used it in a 1986 Wall Street Journal.

C) Family Circle editor Gay Bryant first said it in a 1984 Adweek interview

D) No one knows. Perhaps an unknown woman stuck in middle management in Boston or Toronto or New York said it to a colleague in 1978, and then it spread by word of mouth.

E) None of the above

B is a popular answer on the Web. Even a Forbes story says the term originated in the Wall Street Journal. But keep clicking on those Google results and you’ll find your way to sources that say “glass ceiling” appeared in print two years prior when Gay Bryant said it in the Adweek interview. So answer C is close. But so are answers D and maybe E. Gay Bryant is probably the first to use “the glass ceiling” in print, and she did throw it out there in her Adweek interview. However, the very first time she put those words on paper were on page 19 of her book, The Working Woman Report. In chapter 1, Where We Are, Bryant writes:

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Network of Executive Women

girlsholdinghands.jpgBy Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

“The need for the network is real,” says Alison Paul, head of the Network for Executive Women (NEW), in her President’s Message posted on the organization’s website. NEW is the largest diversity group in the retail and consumer packaged good (CPG) industries. The group has approximately 2,000 members representing more than 400 companies, 15 regional groups, and 53 corporate sponsors. Their mission is clear: to attract, retain and advance women in the retail and consumer products industry through education, leadership and business development.

Paul, who is also a principal at Deloitte & Touche, LLC, where she manages strategic relationships with retailers and consumer goods companies, has been involved with NEW almost since the beginning. The organization started in a living room and was officially formed in 2001. “Women were leaving the industry for more female-friendly companies or they were starting their own businesses,” says Paul.

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Stay at Home Husband? One Lawyer’s Story

Ilise*, a female attorney at a big New York law firm, is the envy of most of her female peers, at least those with children. Unlike most of the other lawyers at her firm, who have to juggle unpredictable hours with inflexible and costly childcare arrangements, Ilise has a built in child care system that doesn’t make her feel as though her two daughters, ages 18 months and 4 years, are being deprived of quality parental time. After Ilise came back to work from her second maternity leave, her husband, a writer, decided to stay home with the girls.

Ilise’s situation is unique, but hardly unusual among professional woman these days. In fact, stay at home husbands have been a hot topic in the blogosphere.

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These Times They Are a Changin’

Recently, as I sat in my Chicago apartment listening to my iPod, Bob Dylan’s famous verses prompted me to consider the changing times for women in business. I started to think of the significant advances that have been made over the past 20 years, resulting in the ever-increasing pool of talented female professionals. I believe these advances are due to in no small part to the increasing availability of resources for women in business, including the growing number of organizations dedicated to helping female professionals succeed.

One such organization, Chicago Financial Women (CFW), was established to support Midwest women in the fields of finance and financial services through professional development, education, and networking. Originally a chapter of the Financial Women’s Association headquartered in New York, Chicago Financial Women became an independent organization about three years ago. I sat down with Deborah Canale, the president of the organization, to discuss the activities of the group, as well as the current state of women in finance in Chicago.
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Ms. Fix-it: Barbara Desoer

By: Pamela Weinsaft

Just as military promotions are offered as a reward for dangerous missions, the key to success in the corporate world may lie in the willingness to take on the challenge of turning around struggling companies or divisions of companies. When women succeed in meeting these challenges, they blaze a trail, advance to senior ranks, and may even shatter that fabled glass ceiling.

Barbara Desoer, bumped from her position of 47 on the Forbes 50 Most Powerful Women in Business in 2006 has been catapulted back into the spotlight this week with her promotion to the rank of President of the new Bank of America mortgage, home equity, and insurance services business. The Wall Street Journal reports that with the acquisition of Countrywide on July 1, 2008, Bank of America became the largest mortgage originator and servicer in the U.S. Ms. Desoer has been given the challenge of pulling Bank of America’s new problem child—Countrywide Mortgage—back into the family fold.
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