Steps to Eliminate Bias in the Legal Profession

Gender stereotypes and the biases that flow from them remain a serious problem in the legal profession, even in the most well-intentioned law firms and organizations. When lawyers understand gender stereotypes and biases, they can effectively combat gender discrimination and improve gender diversity in the legal profession. This course provides lawyers with the information and insights they need to recognize and stop often subtle and unconscious gender biases. It also provides advice and techniques that women and men can use to avoid or overcome such gender bias.

The presenter, Andrea S. Kramer, is a practicing attorney with extensive experience in law firm management, hiring and promotion, compensation, and gender bias. She has served in senior management positions at her law firm and has in-depth experience with all aspects of personnel management, including recruiting, hiring and firing, individual and team supervision, compensation, and promotion. She has co-written more than thirty professional and gender-related articles and book chapters with her husband and fellow attorney Alton Harris, and they have collaborated in mentoring women in a variety of positions and fields and speaking to business and professional groups about overcoming gender bias, and webcasts and blogs on the elimination of bias in the legal profession. This course is based on their personal experiences and the research used in their book, Breaking Through Bias: Communication Techniques for Women to Succeed at Work, Bibliomotion, Brookline, MA, 2016.

Learning Objectives:

I.     Understand the gender stereotypes and biases that are prevalent in the legal profession

II.    Comprehend how gender stereotypes and biases operate to hold female lawyers back in their careers

III.   Provide female lawyers with effective techniques to break through gender bias when they face it

IV.   Sensitize men to the negative effects of gender stereotypes and biases, while providing them with techniques to avoid or eliminate gender bias in their organizations