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In January, two student groups, the Feminist Legal
Forum (FLF) and the Business Law Group (BLG),
set about to answer this very question. The FLF is a
student-run group concerned with the relationship
between equality and law, with a focus on equality
in the practice and application of law. The BLG
aims to bring Robson Hall students interested in
commercial and corporate law into contact with
practitioners in the legal community. The FLF and
BLG joined forces to take on the important subject
of women in corporate law, and the idea for the
“Women in Corporate Law: Is the Gender Divide Fact
or Fiction?” panel discussion was born. The response
from the legal community was tremendous, and the
FLF and BLG effortlessly recruited as our panelists
four stars in Manitoba’s corporate/commercial field:
Eleanor Wiebe, Q.C., Margaret Redmond,
Linda Vincent, and Mary McGunigal. *
The discussion took place before a full room of law
students and faculty members on January 26 at
Robson Hall. Professor John Pozios, Director of the
Desautels Centre for Private Enterprise, moderated
the discussion, which centered on the experiences of
the four panelists. Each provided a description of her
career path and her perspectives on what role, if any,
gender has played in her career.
The panelists disputed the existence of a gender
divide. While most panelists acknowledged that,
at different stages of their careers, they and their
female colleagues were vastly outnumbered by male
co-workers, all of the panelists agreed that gender
had not influenced their career to a large degree. All
of the panelists held the view that it is the quality
of work that matters, and they felt they were not
treated differently from their male colleagues. They
acknowledged that there are challenges associated
with combining work and motherhood, but agreed
that it is usually possible to work with firms and
employers to achieve a degree of flexibility, while
pointing out that no lawyers will be paid for time that
goes unworked. The panelists offered a number of
practical suggestions for handling situations in which
parenting responsibilities conflict with responsibilities
at work. They highlighted the importance of
negotiating for yourself, along with the advice that
you never know what an employer will be willing to
do for you if you don’t ask. The consensus was that
support might be there, even when you don’t expect
it, but if nothing is ventured, nothing is gained.
The panelists agreed that the new generation
of law graduates is creating change in the work
culture of the legal profession, demanding
more realistic work expectations and insisting
that they be able to achieve a work-life balance.
This has resulted in the profession’s adjusting its
values and structure, benefitting both male and
female lawyers. Finally, the panelists encouraged
us to consider the spectrum of legal careers and
to understand that legal practice does not begin
and end with private firms. They emphasized
that we can choose our own careers and
that there is a range of exciting work in nontraditional
fields beyond the corner of Portage
and Main. The audience enlivened the discussion
with a number of questions.
The new generation of law students,
heralded for creating change in the
value placed on work-life balance in the
profession, questioned the idea that
the gender divide was merely about an
inequality of numbers. In particular, a
new and perhaps unanticipated divide
emerged – a generational divide.
*
Eleanor Wiebe is a partner with Fillmore Riley LLP and has practiced commercial law for over 25 years. She was the second woman in Fillmore’s history
to become a Fillmore partner. Margaret Redmond is currently the President and CEO of the Assiniboine Park Conservancy. Ms Redmond served as a
Chief Strategic Officer at the Canadian Wheat Board as well as Executive Vice-President, Corporate Affairs, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary
over an eleven-year period. Linda Vincent is the Vice President of ICE Futures Canada Inc, which is dedicated to providing a public marketplace for responsive
price discovery and risk transfer of commodities with efficiency and integrity. She articled and practiced with TDS for six years before joining
the Manitoba Securities Commission in 1992 as Assistant Counsel. Ms Vincent joined the Winnipeg Commodities Exchange (now ICE Futures) in 1998.
Mary McGunigal has been a Crown Counsel with Civil Legal Services of Manitoba Justice since 1999. Before joining the Manitoba government, she
was associated with the firm of D’Arcy and Deacon LLP.