That’s the headline of an e-mail I received today from the ABA’s Section on Law Practice Management. It looks like that section is trying to fill seats at its Women Rainmakers Mid-Career Workshop to be held in Tucson, Arizona, October 17-19, 2008. According to the program publicity, participants will “network with other successful attorneys, engage in focused topical discussions with knowledgeable legal professionals and learn how to utilize tools to help assess the participant’s career, client relationships, and personal lifestyle requirements in order to maximize rainmaking capabilities.”
All of that sounds appealing — although presumably more so to a practicing lawyer than a law prof whose professional need to “rain-make,” at least in the traditional sense, is not acute. So why would the program be undersubscribed? Why the e-mail with multiple exclamation points? I don’t know, but I do note that the program’s intended speakers are all women. Could this be our own internal misogyny at work? Do women think we have less to learn from each other than from successful male lawyers?
-Bridget Crawford
P.S. Another hypothesis: Successful lawyers don’t want to go to a conference that advertises that other “successful lawyers” will attend. Maybe that’s the best sign that the attendees won’t be?
P.P.S. Another another hypothesis: Maybe noone thinks a conference will be good if the organizers can’t spell the name of the host city correctly.
UPDATE: 9/10/08 The ABA’s website has been updated with the correct spelling of the host city’s name.
O.K. this is probably just me, but those are some rather large (and phallic) cacti in the promotional picture . . . trying to send a subliminal message regarding rainmaking for women???????????????