The Havener Law Firm, LLC

Kathleen Havener

As hard as it is for me to say it, and as hard as it might be for you to hear it, I don't believe that women make better lawyers. I have spent too much of my life committed to achieving gender equality - and more importantly, working hard for gender diversity - to ever say that women make better lawyers.

What I truly believe - and what I dedicate all the time I possibly can spare to - is the notion that the best representation a client can achieve is from a diverse team of lawyers that, to the greatest extent possible, includes women and men.

To get along in the male-dominated world of the law, we must learn that there are times when we must lose the language we learned from the cradle. No longer can we say, "I feel this argument is weaker than the prior one" What are we talking about, anyway? We don't feel anything about the argument - we know damn well that one argument is better than the other. So we need to practice saying what we mean. No more overly polite, "maybe you disagree with me but. . " Just say it. "The second argument is weaker than the first one, and here's why."

Similarly we must lose some of the softness, some of the deference, the tilt of the head, the effort to enter a room unseen. We need to remind ourselves that we belong in the room. That we need not defer. That the tilt of the head and the softness of speech are anachronistic signs of a time when we would defer or else.