Canadian Lawyer

the past but she understands why women may benefit from women-only groups or events. As the only woman in the room in the early part of her career, Broer can see why it's appealing to have separate events. "That is still a lot more effort for me than if I'm in a room full of women or if the majority are women or at least 50 per cent. We interact differently," she says. "I say to the men here all the time I'm happy to do a men's event. If you think it's worthwhile I'm cool with that but nobody's taken me up on it because they don't see themselves as a group." Having separate mentoring or sponsorship efforts creates divisions between women and men, says Broer. "My mentors were men. I didn't have any women mentor me and it cannot be an us-and-them mentality, that is not what this is about, but we have to recognize there are differences, for sure." Chown admits while networking on its own won't do it for women, women need VIEW 2014 Brought to you by Canada's leading CLOs explore their challenges for the year ahead Read it in print or online at www.canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse Live on January 27th vol.8 • issue 5 • 10.13 INHOUSE vol.8 • issue 2 • 04.13 TION OF LAW AT THE INTERSEC >> LAW FIRM GROUND IN-HOUSE >> INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT CONS AND LAW DEPARTMENT MANAGEMENT THE PROS 2 TA'S BILL OF ALBER ASSESSING RISK IN-HOUSE THE BRACING FOR s are in the trenche nies mitigate CATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT # 40766500 40766500 REEMENT # Legal departments DOING BUSINESS WITH INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT BASEL III: THE 'GOLDEN ERA' FOR LAWYERS CHINA PENSION B TIME BOM 30 & BUSINESS RTMENT LAW DEPA NT MANAGEME ON BOOTS Fred Headon, counsel, assistant general Canada Air 2014 >> >> CANADIAN LAWYER INHOUSE AT THE INTERSECTION OF LAW & BUSINESS Chinese-Canadian relations have become big business for both countries and deals are evolving Jan uary www 1 InHouseViewBlakes_Lexpert_Dec_12.indd . C A N A D I A N L a w ye r m a g . c o m 13-11-25 8:53 AM powerful mentors and sponsors to help them advance and those people tend to be men because of the way firms and companies are currently structured. "Law firms and companies continue to be largely male environments so that women-targeted programs or activities such as networking can be extremely helpful to women," she says. "The unconscious transmission of information in law firms that happens casually between men often doesn't get transmitted to women in the same way." Mandel says as women advance in their careers they need a champion and it's more likely to be a man because there are still more men at the top. "If you have limited yourself to women championing you and guiding you when you get to that more critical stage in your career you might fall short to what you need in that next step." When Dentons started its diversity initiative seven years ago, it was determined there wasn't going to be a separate women's initiative. "The reason is we didn't want it to be about women standing in the corner talking about mat leave," says Broer. "That ghettoizing — that was going to be wholly unproductive. Law firms have been doing it for years and it has been a colossal failure and we didn't want to replicate colossal failure." The discussion around women-only associations and whether they should exclude men came up at this year's fifth annual conference of A Call to Action Canada in Toronto. Debra Henke, director of legal services North America for Accenture Inc., spoke on a panel about programs the company has in place to aid in retention and someone asked whether men should be excluded from joining women-only groups. "The discussion wasn't for or against but that it is a real concern and there were arguments both ways on the issue," says Joy Casey, founder of A Call To Action Canada. "We all want to be inclusive — whenever there is an element of exclusion it raises a concern. I can see the arguments both ways but I think for any community there is an issue of support from shared experiences that are important and I think people need those opportunities to talk freely and openly. You also need the opportunities to be allinclusive. It shouldn't be us against them, but you just need those times," says Casey.

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