Advice for a Rewarding Career as a Woman Lawyer

Lynne M. Halbrooks[For Women’s History Month, we invited some of our alumni to provide their reflections as guest bloggers of the month. This post is from Lynne M. Halbrooks, L’88.]

In the three decades since I became a Marquette Lawyer, I have had the opportunity to cross paths with dozens of woman lawyers early in their careers. I have mentored, hired, and worked with tremendously talented young women who have had diverse and amazing professional experiences. I watched them struggle, overcome obstacles, and excel in their jobs. The same is true for my law school friends and women I had the privilege to work for over the years. My experiences as a government lawyer, in private practice, and now as in-house counsel have introduced me to women lawyers working in a wide variety of jobs across the legal industry.  The following five tips for a rewarding legal career are based on my own experiences and my observations of how successful women lawyers have navigated their careers.

1. Work with people you like. You will spend a lot of hours at work, especially if you’ve chosen a career in private practice. There will be teamwork, meetings, lunches, and maybe even travel and dinners together. It is important that you like your supervisor and your colleagues.

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NAAC Teams Collect Accolades in DC

3 law students posing in courthouse professional dress
Jake Rozema, Darrin Pribbernow, and Christin Saint Pierre at the NAAC Washington DC regionals.
3 law students posing in a courthouse in professional dress
Charlie Bowen, Julie Leary, and Alex Sterling at the NAAC Washington DC regionals

Thirty-two teams from across the country arrived in Washington, D.C. at the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse on February 27, all prepared to present oral arguments in the National Appellate Advocacy Competition (NAAC) regional. Two Marquette Law teams were among those and both made their presence known.

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Gender, Party ID, and the Wisconsin Primary

The gender balance of the parties in Wisconsin is different than during recent past presidential elections. A significant number of men have changed their partisanship, shifting from the Democrats to the Republicans. Wisconsin women’s preferences haven’t systematically changed.

During the period 2012 through 2016, male registered voters in Wisconsin split 48% Republican – 42% Democratic (this includes independents who lean to a party). Since 2016, the balance has been 53% Republican compared to 36% Democratic. Women have remained a consistent 52-53% Democrat and 38% Republican.

This shift has had two main consequences. First, the relative size of the Democratic party has declined. From 2012-16, Democrats (including leaners) made up 48% of all Wisconsin registered voters; 43% were Republicans. Now, the Marquette Law Poll finds an even more narrowly divided electorate–44% Democrat and 45% Republican. Second, the Wisconsin Democratic party has become proportionally more female. Fifty-eight percent of self-identified Wisconsin Democrats were women in 2012-16. This has grown to 62% in the years since then.

Female Democratic primary voters have somewhat different preferences than their male counterparts. This graph below shows the support for each candidate from our February 2020 poll of Wisconsin women and men who intend to vote in the Democratic presidential primary in April.

Substantial gender gaps are apparent for some candidates, including Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren. But the margins of error are inevitably quite large due to the small subsample sizes of a single poll.

In order to maximize cases, the next graph pools all Marquette Law Poll surveys from August 2019 through February 2020. This months-long average does not reflect the most current levels of support for each candidate, but the direction of the gender differences remains the same. Elizabeth Warren is clearly more popular with women (18% support compared with 12% from men). Likewise, Bernie Sanders is more popular with male Democratic primary voters (25% compared to 18% among women). Amy Klobuchar and Joe Biden might be more popular with women, but the differences are small. Tulsi Gabbard receives support from about 3% of male Democratic primary voters and 0% of female voters. Pete Buttigieg’s support is the most evenly divided between men and women of any active candidate.

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