Women have made significant strides in the legal profession since they have become the majority of lawyers in Quebec nearly a decade ago. However, they still face considerable obstacles over pay equity, access to partnerships or leadership positions, work-life balance and suffer silently due to sexual harassment and discrimination, prompting many to shun private practice and leave the profession far earlier than men, according to a report and leading Quebec legal actors.
“There is still work to be done to ensure that the share of female members in our professional order and their contribution to their workplaces is fully recognized throughout their careers,” said Catherine Claveau, the head of the Quebec Bar. “What has changed is that maybe we are becoming more and more aware of the importance of women in the profession. But in practice, unfortunately, it’s not very much reflected in the statistics.”
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Women represent 55 per cent of all Quebec bar members, more than 60 per cent of members with 10 years or less of practice, 65 per cent of students at the bar school, and over 70 per cent of students in Quebec law schools, reveals a joint report by the Barreau du Québec and the Canadian Bar Association, Quebec division, based on a roundtable and statistics from the law society. Yet the few figures that exist over pay gaps indicate that women earn much less than men. Nearly half, or 46 per cent of female lawyers, report an annual income of less than $90,000, compared to 33 per cent of men, and only 26 per cent of women have an hourly rate of over $201 as opposed to 51 per cent of men, according to the most recent data from the Quebec law society.
Part of the problem is that there is a dearth of statistics and quantitative studies in Canada that have examined the issue of pay disparity in the legal profession, affirmed the joint report. Echoing findings made by a 2022 Canadian Bar Association pay equity study, the joint report underlines that it is difficult to identify pay disparities in the legal profession due to a lack of transparency shrouding lawyer compensation and a reluctance or unease by individual lawyers to discuss compensation issues. Women also reportedly find it more difficult to negotiate their remuneration due to a lack of self-confidence and “fear of rejection,” and are concerned about “charging too much” to their hourly rate, added the joint report.
Findings in other countries such as in the United Kingdom and the U.S. suggest that the gender pay gap in the legal profession is an endemic issue. The median gender pay gap in the U.K. legal profession stands at 25.4 per cent, a figure that has remained largely unchanged since 2017, according to a human resources analytics firm that analyzed the hourly pay rates provided by law firms under the statutory gender pay reporting guidelines for 2022. A 2021 report by the American Bar Association also came to the same conclusion, underlining that pay inequity was the most frequently cited reason women lawyers left their firms. A 2020 survey, conducted by the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association and the Counsel Network in 2020, concluded that Canadian in-house counsel women earned 11 per cent less than men in the same roles.
The CBA pay equity report recommended that law societies collect salary data and create a public online database that outlines compensation divided by area of practice, year of call, type and size of workplace, location and demographic information. It also recommends law societies compel legal workplaces to report annually on ranges of lawyer compensation at all levels, and to identify discrepancies based on gender. Claveau, without committing herself to put in place the CBA recommendations, urges law firms to be more transparent over pay equity.
Montreal lawyer Patricia Fourcand, who participated in the roundtable, suggests that the Quebec bar at the very least could issue “a very strong recommendation” to law firms to become more transparent over remuneration. She also recommends that law firms hire pay equity experts to address the issue. “If all law firms made public its remuneration, there would be some discomfort,” said Fourcand of Fourcand, Tremblay, Kissel, Plante LLP, a firm established seven months ago.
The basic business model of remuneration based on billable hours and the culture of the profession ill serves women, suggests the joint report. “The fact that we still operate with business models that are based on the number of billable hours and then on bringing in clients, dedication and unfailing availability is difficult to maintain for women, particularly during the period when they are less available because they have family responsibilities,” said Anne-Marie Laflamme, dean of the Faculty of Law at the Université Laval and a member the roundtable. But “it’s a business model that is difficult to change because, firstly, it still works and secondly, it’s hard to find another one that would be better. It’s not easy to make changes when the model is still working,” added Laflamme who co-wrote a study titled “Inequality in the progression of women lawyers in Quebec law firms: towards a change process.”
Besides failing to recognizing that women spend more time on administrative and outreach work, referred to as “pink work” while men spend more time on “fee-based” activities, it’s also a business model that wreaks havoc on work-life balance, with women bearing the price, said the report and legal pundits. The pressure to drive up billable hours and foster client development, an important factor in salary determination and the underpinning behind gaining access to positions of power, is at odds with the realities faced by women who by and large are caretakers, a situation that has been amplified in recent years with growing numbers of women compelled to care for elderly parents and in some cases grandchildren. As a lawyer quoted in the report put it: “Women don’t have time to go to happy hour.”
Parental leave, for instance, remains the exclusive domain of women. An astonishing 98 per cent of bar members who took parental leave in the last year were women, noted the report. Even among young lawyers, or lawyers with less than 10 years of practice, a dismal 0.2 per cent of men took parental leave compared to four per cent of women. “Whether we like it or not, women often have the responsibility or a large part of the responsibility for children,” said Fourcand. “There are just a certain number of hours that we have per day so when you are a woman with children you can’t always compete completely on equal terms.”
The pressure to bill and network even drives women lawyers, particularly in private practice, to conceal their plans for motherhood as they fear they will pay the consequences of “persistent prejudice” and miss out on opportunities, said the report. The repercussions of maternity leave can be felt for two years afterwards and in some cases be long lasting, such as losing clients or failing to meet performance targets for bonuses, added the report. “It is appalling,” remarked Laflamme. “It is totally incomprehensible that young women are forced to hide their plans to have children. It is deplorable. Law firms should obviously have maternity policies that are clear, that are known, that allow young women to know exactly where they stand.”
It’s not surprising then that the majority of women lawyers shirk away from joining private practice, add legal pundits. Only 35 per cent of women lawyers are in private practice, compared to 52 per cent of men, discloses the report. Just as disturbingly, women represent only 32 per cent of partners in firms of all sizes, noted the report. But those figures don’t tell the whole story as it fails to distinguish between participating and non-participating partners, noted Suzie Lanthier of Gowling WLG International Limited and head of the Forum of Women Lawyers at the Canadian Bar Association, Quebec Division. So few women have become equity partners that some say it is not a glass ceiling at work in the legal profession, but rather a brick wall, said Lanthier.
On top of all the challenges faced by women, the report notes that sexual harassment and violence is still “unfortunately still present in the profession.” Sexual harassment, unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion takes place in all workplace contexts, formal or informal, is often perpetrated by a colleague or a partner with a higher hierarchical status, and has far-reaching personal and professional consequences, with up to nearly 20 per cent of women changing career paths following the sexual misconduct, according to a 2018 study conducted by researchers at the Université Laval who were given the mandate by the Quebec bar.
“It’s difficult to take steps because women are afraid to go forward,” said Fourcand. “They are afraid to denounce. They are afraid to speak out.”
Women lawyers are so dispirited by the profession’s working conditions, mental workload, work-life balance issues, the pay gap, and lack of recognition that they tend to retire a decade earlier than men. Women lawyers on average leave the profession at 53 compared to 63 for men. “Women are really good at school and then they get into practice, and we lose them,” remarked Lanthier. “That’s what’s alarming. So why are we losing them?”
Reports cited in the article:
- Women in the Profession: Meeting the Retention Challenge
- By the Quebec Bar
- https://www.barreau.qc.ca/media/3384/rapport-retention-femmes.pdf
- Only in French
- The Profession in Numbers (La Profession en Chiffres)
- By the Quebec Bar published in 2022
- https://www.barreau.qc.ca/media/3089/barreau-metre-2022.pdf
- Only in French
- Pay Equity in the Legal Profession
- By the Canadian Bar Association
- Published in November 2021
- https://www.cba.org/getattachment/Sections/Women-Lawyers/Resources/Resources/2022/Pay-Equity-in-the-Legal-Profession/CBA-WLFPayEquityReport.pdf
- Survey on Sexual Harassment and Violence in the Practice of Law
- By the Université Laval
- https://www.raiv.ulaval.ca/sites/raiv.ulaval.ca/files/publications/fichiers/rapport-enquete-harcelement-violences-caractere-sexuel-pratique-droit.pdf
- Only in French
- Closing the gender pay gap in the legal profession
- By Next 100 Years and Gapsquare, part of XpertHR
- UK study
- https://next100years.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/1317_Next_100_Years_GSQ_Report_20_6_22_V3.pdf
This story was originally published in Law360 Canada.