Yale Law School
Sponsored by Yale Law Women
“Opt Out”or Pushed Out will address the controversial phenomenon described by some as”opting out,” the supposed trend of professional women leaving the workplace to devote their energies to family care-taking, full time.
This conference will focus on the dynamics of the”trend”within the legal profession, inviting legal practitioners, professional students, and scholars to critically assess the structural, institutional, and societal reasons why women lawyers may be departing from the workplace. It will also devote significant energy to the experiences of men and how they may be similar to – or different from – those of female attorneys. Conference panels will touch on topics of parenthood, social expectations that treat men and women differently, and how the legal field can learn from other professions that have begun to accommodate the reality of male and female professionals’ multi-faceted lives.
Men and women in the legal profession — practitioners, students, and scholars — will come together to critically assess the structural, institutional and societal pressures that affect all attorneys and have made balance particularly elusive for women. The aim is to generate concrete goals and methods for improving the structure of the workplace and social perceptions of the occupational choices that attorneys make.
We hope you will join us for this thought-provoking and timely discussion!
