Inspired by all the writing about law firms trying to retain their opting out female employees, I recently wrote a piece in the National Law Journal suggesting that an awful lot of women I interviewed had gone to law school with seemingly little understanding of what it meant to work in the legal profession. Not surprisingly, many more women leave the profession than men do. Since taxpayers fund state schools and deductible contributions support private schools, I suggested that this was sort of a poor allocation of social resources. Instead I proposed the following:

"Men and women should get the same access to law school-same tuition, same scholarships, etc. If, however, 10 years after graduation, the law school graduate is not working full-time at some job for which law school is a reasonable preparation, he, or more likely, she, will have to give the school back the money that it spent educating him or her over and above whatever was paid in tuition. The refunds would be put in a fund for scholarships for law students who could not otherwise afford to go to law school.

I'd even go further and say that at private law schools, which are allowed to discriminate by sex, the funds should go to women who could not otherwise afford to go to law school. Women are still disproportionately poorer than men are, and families are still more willing to pay to educate their sons than their daughters. I'd be willing to bet that women otherwise too poor to go to law school wouldn't be so quick to quit."

I am now getting a handful of angry (as well as some supportive) letters from women lawyers working in firms or other law related enterprises. The angry ones are a mystery to me, as the writers are the very ones I am holding up as a model of what SHOULD be done with a legal education. Here's an example:

"I am a woman who has been practicing law for 20 years. I went to a private law school. I paid all my student loans back with 12% and 9% interest rates. I have made quite a good living and have paid an enormous amount of taxes on my income for 20 years. Have you considered these contributions to our economy? Have you done any sort of economic evaluation of your proposition that women law students are costing tax payers money. I don’t think you have. Women have contributed huge amounts to our tax base and our economy through their tuition payments, their loan payments and their income and property taxes."

and another:

"as a female partner in a law firm, with two school age children, i find your article irresponsible, superficial with no real analysis as to why females leave the profession."

I cannot help wondering if they actually read the article.

As to the first, I said nothing about contributions to the economy through tuition payments, although I have no idea why the economic impact of tuition would be any different from expenditures on Manolos. But contributions to the tax base is exactly what I am talking about. Going to a subsidized law school and then becoming a stay at home mom consumes more tax resources than it creates. The weird thing is that the writer herself did do precisely what I advocate and did create tax revenue in the process. So she is making my point exactly
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As to the second, I wasn't writing the umpteenth article about why females leave the profession. I wasn't writing about why you should not wear white shoes after Labor Day. There are many articles I was not writing. I mentioned, of course, that the hours are long and that the most rewarding work is usually not available to those unwilling to work the long hours and that, as I cannot reiterate too often, the engine driving the problem is that women bear the overwhelming majority of the household labor. So, although I do not know what constitutes "real analysis" in the writer's mind, I did not neglect the issue. But my point was that it is dreamy and foolish for women to go to law school unless they are willing to face the realities of what work will be available to them, unless there is a tidal wave of social change, which they are going to have to generate themselves. Of course, maybe if they thought they had to give the expense of subsidizing their training back, they'd be a little more demanding of such change at home -- or at work.

If the letter writers, who are authentic (each of them signed the letter and included the name of her firm), did read the article, it is a little scary to think that practicing lawyers can read this or any text and so completely misunderstand its content.

Here's a voice from the other side, also just in:

"I just wanted to write in to say that I just read "Get to Work" and loved it. As a single, happily child-free partner in a large law firm in San Francisco I am watching with dismay as the 50% of lawyers graduating from the nation's top law schools that are women dwindles down to the 15% of large firm partnerships that are women. I also watch with horror as my girlfriends from college all give up their careers, all potentially serious and thriving careers, to become 'stay at home moms.' "

But here's the scary part. The writer goes on to criticize the book because it's too hard:

"I have one disappointment about "Get to Work" and it is regarding form, not substance. It's not an easy read. A large percentage of the women who most need to read this manifesto are women whose minds have been turned to mush after years or even months of Barney, birthday parties, and play dates. They probably couldn't get through the first chapter of your book without going "huh?" and putting it down, never to be picked up again. They are already going to be resistant to what the manifesto has to say, so they need something that is much more predigested, maybe in comic book form or at least with a few pictures? I'm half joking but mostly serious. I'd love to give the book to my sister (who sits at the precipice, she has a great job as an accountant with Deloitte Touche and is living with her boyfriend but they haven't yet made the jump to marriage and children), but I can't imagine her taking the time to muddle through the difficult language. (She almost never reads non-fiction.)"

I read these letters and wonder whether next time I go for legal advice I might get a lawyer unable to understand a simple opinion piece or, if this last writer is telling the truth, an accountant who cannot read the opening paragraphs of Get to Work or, indeed, any non-fiction.