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WIPR Influential Women in IP 2019
www.worldipreview.com Women in the boardroom
How Important do you think gender diversity is to improving your organisation’s success?
First, recognise and understand why gender
diversity is important. Second, change the perception
that the only path to success requires sacrificing
family commitment.
Last but not least, recognise the non-billable
contributions that women often make in the firm.
“Women (and minorities) are often asked to serve
on more committees, participate in panels, serve
on committee boards, and do other things that can
detract from their ability just to bill hours—then they
are paid less because they didn’t bill as many hours,”
says the respondent.
However, there can be costs associated with gender
parity, and from these costs come resistance.
Senior management may believe that the overall
resources being spent on a woman employee are
greater than those spent on a male employee so it
“costs” a firm more if it employs more women, warns
Majumder.
She concludes: “My rebuttal to that is, if you truly
want the best talent in the industry to be attracted
to seek employment at your firm (which will directly
impact the quality of the work you do for your
clients) then wouldn’t you want to be known as an
empathetic law firm that values its employees, thinks
about their comfort and has low rates of attrition?
“Or would you rather be known as a misogynistic
firm with a culture of hostility towards women?” l
Wouldn’t you
want to be
known as an
empathetic law
firm that values
its employees,
thinks about
their comfort
and has low
rates of attrition?
IP Inclusive
IP organisations in the UK have launched an initiative committed to making
the IP professions more inclusive.
Five organisations—the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, the
Chartered Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys, the IP Federation and the UK
Association of the International Federation of Intellectual Property Attorneys
and the UK Intellectual Property Office—launched IP Inclusive in 2015.
Currently, 134 signatories have signed up to the IP Inclusive Equality,
Diversity and Inclusion Charter, a public commitment to supporting and
promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in the IP professions
Do you think the legal profession as a whole
is doing well at improving gender diversity?
Yes: 45%
No: 55%
Extremely Important: 42%
Very important: 36%
Somewhat important: 16%
Not so important: 5%
Not at all important: 1%
42%
36%
16%
5%
1%
Female: 64%
Female: 81%
Male: 36%
Male: 19%
Shwetasree Majumder,
Fidus Law