I would say that the biggest challenges that I have faced as a female lawyer have been the fact that we work in an environment created by men, the pervasiveness of unconscious gender bias both in men and women, and the work/parenthood balance.
My greatest career accomplishment has been to expand the IP/TMT department in a full-service firm which, many years ago, did not consider IP/TMT as core to our business. In the last five years or so I have tripled the number of lawyers and paralegals working in this sector, all of them fully occupied and with solid profitability.
I think that the gender pay gap in this field is secondary to the fact that men are more easily promoted to partners than women across all practice areas.
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