|
 |
|
Carrie Cohen (far right) with
seminar participants in Lima: (left
to right) Laura Francia, Maria del
Carmen Tovar and Teresa Tovar. |
In both the United
States and Latin America, women
attorneys have come to realize that
despite the clear trend toward the
growing participation of women in the
legal profession, women remain
underrepresented at senior levels.
Focusing on Latin America, the Vance
Center has made continuing efforts to
support the development of women in the
legal profession. In October 2007, the
Vance Center co-organized a round table
discussion in partnership with Estudio
Echecopar in Lima, Peru on ways to
overcome challenges facing women
attorneys at all stages of their
careers.
At the round table,
Carrie Cohen, past Chair of the New York
City Bar’s Committee on Women in the
Profession, presented the “Best
Practices for the Hiring, Training,
Retention and Advancement of Women
Attorneys.” The Report, which was
published by the City Bar’s Women in the
Profession Committee in February 2006,
proposes 10 “Best Practices” that
address issues such as senior management
commitment, organizational
accountability, representative
leadership, mentoring and workplace
flexibility. The Best Practices was
first introduced in Latin America by Ms.
Cohen at a similar seminar that was held
in Buenos Aires, Argentina in April
2007.
The seminar in Lima
addressed the gender gap in the legal
profession by providing women attorneys
with the chance to share opinions on
addressing similar challenges at their
firms, including finding appropriate
mentors, flex time and obstacles to
re-entering the workforce after
childbirth. “The roundtable was an
excellent opportunity to become familiar
with the Report, which presents the
common problems that women lawyers face
in both the private and public sectors,”
said Maria del Carmen Tovar Gil, a
partner at Echecopar and co-chair of the
event. “The Report is helpful in
identifying the challenges women
confront in their practices, and is
helpful in different strategies to
address them. It was also a great chance
for the Peruvian women who attended the
event to share their experiences and
express their points of view.”
Women lawyers in
Buenos Aires and Lima have expressed
enthusiasm to continue this exchange of
ideas by forming networking groups to
advance the role of women in the legal
profession and have been meeting on a
regular basis. Follow-up meetings were
held in Buenos Aires on July 3 and
October 2. Roxana Kahale, a partner at
Kahale Abogados, who attended the latest
such meeting, said: “For the first time
that I can recall, women lawyers are
meeting to discuss issues which are
important not only to them, but to the
general management of their firms, which
want to retain them.”
The Vance Center is
currently working on expanding the reach
of the Report and its efforts to advance
women in the legal profession by
planning similar roundtables in
Columbia, Chile, and Mexico.
For more information on the Vance
Center's work on women in the legal
profession contact Carrie Cohen at
ccohen@nycbar.org. For more
information on the Vance Center's work
in Latin America contact Elise Colomer
Grimaldi at
ecolomer@nycbar.org.
Read the Best
Practices manual in
English or in
Spanish. An abbreviated version is
also available in
Spanish.
Read
related articles:
"Women
lawyers join forces in Argentina"
Latin Lawyer. August 23, 2007.
"Lawyers
share strategies for advancing women in
the legal profession"
Forty-Fourth Street Notes, New York City
Bar. September, 2007. |
