On Oct. 9, 2023, Harvard economist Claudia Goldin was awarded the Nobel Prize for her work in economics, for creating “the first comprehensive account of women’s earnings and labor market participation through the centuries.” Goldin’s vast work has shown that despite having equal education and qualifications, women still earn less than men. Her research has also shown that strong economies and technological advancements have not leveled the playing field for women.

Goldin’s findings, unfortunately, are all too true in the legal profession. Women lawyers still lag behind men in reaching the upper levels of leadership, compensation, and career satisfaction, even though for more than a quarter of a century women have made up at least half of all graduating law school classes across the country. As the Rutgers Center for Women and Work (CWW) stated in its 2022 report “Women In Private Law Firms: Slow Progress on Equality of Promotion and Compensation,” (CWW 2022 Report), women lawyers’ rate of career advancement is the same as it was in the 1990s. The CWW 2022 Report also revealed that little has changed in New Jersey since the release of the CWW’s 2009 study of the same topic, “Report on Legal Talent at the Crossroads: Why Women Lawyers Leave Their Law Firms and Why They Choose to Stay.”