With women having been disproportionately affected by the pandemic— more than 2 million of them have left the workforce— an NJSBA Virtual Annual Meeting panel sponsored by the NJSBA Women in the Profession Section on Wednesday dared to ask the question: “Has Coronavirus Taken Women Back to the 1950s?”
Paulette Brown, past president of American Bar Association and senior partner and chief diversity and inclusion, Locke Lord in Princeton, moderated the panel. Speakers included Hudson County Superior Court Judge Kimberly Espinales-Maloney; Heather Joy Baker, Clerk, Supreme Court of New Jersey; Diane L. Cardoso of Javerbaum Wurgaft Hicks Kahn Wikstrom & Sinins; Lisa A. Gorab of Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer; former NJSBA President Ralph J. Lamparello of Chasan Lamparello Mallon & Cappuzzo, PC; Carolyn F. O'Connor of Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker; and Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Najma Q. Rana.
The panelists discussed how the pandemic has affected their professional and personal lives and what the legal profession should do to make the profession more hospitable to attracting and retaining women.
Many said while the latest statistics on women in the workforce were alarming, they did not believe the profession would return to the 1950s, a time when opportunities were limited for women and far fewer women worked. But the legal profession needs to recognize the inordinate amount of challenges the pandemic has placed on women, including juggling childcare, eldercare and work.
Espinales-Maloney, mother to a three-year-old and an 11-year-old doing remote schooling, said her responsibilities have quadrupled because of the pandemic and intensified feelings of guilt. She said she’s been able to cope because her parents have helped with care and she works at all hours, including late at night when her children are sleeping and on weekends.
Like others, she said technology has been a silver lining during the pandemic because it enables her to work remotely.
“The mantra in the Judiciary is still virtual first,” she said.
Espinales-Maloney said she and other judges she’s spoken to say they are trying to accommodate the schedules of women attorneys and self-represented litigants.
Gorab noted there’s a double standard for women in the workplace.
For example, she noticed male attorneys judge women attorneys harshly when their children interrupt Zoom calls, but not when male attorneys are interrupted by their children.
Ralph J. Lamparello said he hears how male attorneys talk about women in the profession and that there has to be an “awakening.”
“Males need to wake up and realize it is a sexist society,” he said.
Lamparello said the state Supreme Court and the NJSBA should have a hotline where we women attorneys can complain without retribution about unfair treatment.
While there has been progress at firms, including some managers and clients who are enlightened about women, O’Connor said “Women do not have the support from all the systems that were in place before the pandemic.” She said there needs to be continual conversations and programs to make sure women attorneys are supported and “to ensure that we’re not going back to the 1950s.”