Mean Girls

Earlier this week, a teenager in a town not too far from here hanged herself after six months of bullying and cyber-tormenting by the high school cool girls. Even after her death, the gloating continued on Facebook. Her tragedy and the arrogant, narcissistic cruelty of the tormentors has captured local attention and fills the radio talk shows.

Yesterday, I heard a talk show caller (male) comment that "it wasn't surprising," because "women are always that way." He went on to relate a story of a friend who was a lawyer at a large downtown law firm: "My friend says the women senior partners terrorize the junior women partners. It's brutal."

I will be the first to agree that society of women operates on different rules than the society of men, and that women (like men) can be thoughtless and even cruel. I claim no special "kindness" for my sex. The queen bee phenomenon exists (though it is usually a single hard-bitten survivor), but truly, I am shocked by that caller's account of a group of senior women ganging up against the younger ones. Perhaps his tale is accurate, I cannot say because I do not know the name of the firm, but I doubt it.

I have spent twenty years in large law firm settings, and by and large, the women have looked out for each other. Within firms, the more senior women - especially we few senior partners - generally do our best to mentor the young ones: we de-brief them after sexist encounters, give them a "heads up" about particularly difficult clients or opposing counsel, and share strategies for navigating firm hierarchies.

The women's network in the larger legal community is also strong. We may not be chummy (after all, we are often opposing each other in court), but within our jurisdiction or practice area, we few, senior women keep tabs on each other. We compare experiences and women's "war stories," even about our own firms, and in a pinch, when the issue is a woman's issue, and not a case, we back each other up. I have seen it and experienced it again and again.

In the large dollar, complex lawsuits that are my specialty, there are rarely more than two or three senior women among the many lawyers and law firms involved. When the deposition breaks, or the judge dismisses the jury, we all head to the same place, and we are alone there for days and hours and weeks over the course of a complex matter. Being generally adverse, we can't talk about the case, and most of us don't talk football. So what do we do? Well, we're girls, so we start with the easy stuff, "Wow, I love your shoes!" And then, we dish: "Did you hear that Smith & Smith finally made a woman senior partner? I didn't think they'd ever do that . . ." Before long, it's personal: "How good is your firm about part time?"

So, mean girls be damned, but don't damn us all: the sisterhood of the Ladies Room is strong.