Firm Crack in the Glass Ceiling

Nancy Ezold was the only woman associate vying for a partnership in the litigation department of Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen in 1988.

The partners’ written evaluations of Ezold’s competitors at the Philadelphia law firm were unsparing: One “lazy” associate “disappears without notice.” Another showed little promise of becoming more than “a helper who does what he is told.” Of a third associate, one partner wrote, “I don’t know how he has lasted this long in the firm.” In contrast, Ezold was described as having “guts and maturity,” “an exceptionally good courtroom lawyer,” and able “to handle major cases independently.”

Each of these three men was named a litigation partner. But Nancy Ezold was not. Instead, the firm offered her a less desirable partnership in the domestic relations department. Take it or leave it.

Nancy Ezold took her case to court instead, where, last November, a federal district court judge ruled that she was the victim of sex discrimination. Last week, the judge ruled that Wolf Block may have to calculate Ezold’s damages using a partner’s salary rather than her lower associate’s salary.

While entry-level jobs in many professions are opening up, a “glass ceiling” often blocks women from firm partnerships, corporate management and university tenure. Women constitute nearly 39% of the associates in California’s 50 largest law firms but only 12% of the partners.

In 1980, Elizabeth Hishon won monetary damages in a landmark discrimination case against an Atlanta law firm; the U.S. Supreme Court later held that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act did extend to partnership decisions. Last year, a federal appeals court ruled that Ann B. Hopkins, a Price Waterhouse accountant, had been denied a partnership because of sex discrimination and directed the firm to make Hopkins a partner. Last week’s ruling in the Ezold case extends the principles of the Hopkins case to law firms.

According to her attorney, Nancy Ezold’s intent is not to embarrass her firm but to “shock many of the larger law firms into doing some self-examination.” Such introspection is long overdue for many corporations, universities and law firms.