Center for Women in Law

Convening leaders, generating ideas, leading change.

Women now enter the legal profession in equal proportion to men and some have ascended to the highest positions in the field:  Supreme Court justice, law-school dean, attorney general, managing partner, general counsel, senator, governor, presidential candidate. Yet despite these historic gains, the path for women remains fraught.

More and more are leaving practice—or exiting the workforce entirely—as career advancement opportunities and work-life balance continue to be elusive. And those who stay are finding fewer and fewer opportunities for advancement as the percentage of women in leadership positions has plateaued far below the point of gender parity. The challenges are (1) how to continue to attract women to law; and (2) how to retain and advance women in law by providing opportunities for quality work, significant client relationships, and leadership roles.

To help meet that challenge, The University of Texas School of Law is proud to announce the creation of the Center for Women in Law. The Center will be the premier American institution devoted to the success of the entire spectrum of women in law, from first-year law students to the most experienced and accomplished attorneys. It will combine theory with practice, identifying and addressing the persistent issues facing individual women and the profession as a whole. With an approach both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, the Center will focus on gathering and sharing best practices from all avenues of law practice as well as from a host of other professions, including medicine, business, journalism, politics, and academia.

Among the Center’s goals are to:

• help women choose among the landscape of career options;
• identify and remove barriers to women’s success in law;
• foster professional development through training and mentoring;
• seek creative solutions that allow women to raise families while building legal careers;
• increase the number of women in leadership positions;
• draw attention to these issues, creating momentum that will drive and support institutional change;
• establish and promote best practices focused on the advancement and retention of women in law firms, businesses and other organizations;
• provide a center for academic research;
• work as a strategic partner with other institutions focused on the advancement of women; and
• serve as a resource to law firms, businesses and other organizations across Texas and throughout the U.S.

One of the Center’s very first initiatives is its inaugural conference, to be held in Austin in spring 2009. The Women’s Power Summit on Law and Leadership will be an historic gathering of leading women in law, ranging from those at the highest echelons of private practice and the corporate sector to their counterparts in government, non-profits, academia, and the judiciary. At this Summit, the country’s elite female lawyers will exchange ideas and field-tested solutions, culminating in the drafting of a platform that calls for specific, concrete steps to tackle the stubborn obstacles facing women in the profession today. Participants will be encouraged to continue their association with the Center, returning as leaders-in-residence and serving as faculty for an ongoing leadership academy.

In addition, the Center will commission scholarly research, collect relevant data, and draft model policies designed to rectify inequalities and secure meaningful opportunities for women in law. Under the leadership of new Executive Director Hannah Brenner, its members will advocate for significant and lasting changes both in law and in the practice of law.

For more information, please contact Eden Harrington at eharrington@law.utexas.edu