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LaCalamita Continued from page 41 custom-made parental-leave tool kit is available online, filled with practical in- formation on flex time and useful articles on parenting. And six hours of confiden- tial coaching by a trained therapist is also available to lawyers and their spouses. And mentoring is very important, she says, adding that "we don't have enough senior women to be mentors." Still, the firm has "a good formal program," and, with consulting firm Catalyst, it has also developed peer-to-peer mentoring within practice groups. But, in the profession overall, LaCa- lamita's lawyers point to the gaping dis- crepancies in the status of female and male lawyers. "There are women part- ners I know who've had two or three kids: senior associates make more [than they do]," says MacKillop. "And there are difficult discussions with large firms about time," such as, "If you're not going to work the hours, how can I trust you with these files?" Eberts, a prominent litigator who has worked on the equity issue as a law soci- ety bencher, and who sat on the Bertha Wilson task force on women in the legal profession, says despite the perception that women generally have achieved equality with men, they are in fact fall- ing behind. In the legal profession there has been good progress with women advancing in government service and within corporate counsel ranks, and after that on the bench, she says. But private practice has fared less well. "All the stud- ies are turning up the same information over and over," says Eberts. "The strategy of trying to reward voluntary efforts of compliance [with equity guidelines], or coaxing [firms] to do it, are simply not working, because they're not doing it." In equity lawsuits, she adds, courts tend to find in favour of female blue-collar plaintiffs, but find against those who are professional and wealthier, or who are seeking equal access to power or money. "The time is certainly ripe for the law so- ciety to be dealing with [the equity issue], and the profession was very positive about the [Ontario] law society taking a leader- ship role," says Pawlitza, who has admitted to frustration at the lack of advancement of women at her former (now disbanded) firm of Goodman and Carr LLP, where she was also an equity partner. On the West Coast, Kerry Simmons is a member of Young Lawyers, the Women Lawyers Forum, and a past chairwoman of Women Rainmakers, Vancouver Is- land; called to the bar in 2000, she prac- tises litigation and family law with Cook Roberts LLP in Victoria. Simmons says she hasn't found discrimination toward women a concern among her colleagues, although there is consternation that more women than men are leaving pri- vate practice. "I've found that the stories I've heard from women who are senior to me, and the concerns they express, are not as prevalent as they seem to have been at [one] time," she says. "So I think there's improvement in the way the pro- fession has adapted to women being in it, and part of it. . . . [It] is definitely im- proving all the time." Telephone: (613) 563-7660 Facsimile: (613) 563-8001 info@emondharnden.com Emond_CL_Sep_08.indd 1 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com OC T OBER 2008 47 9/9/08 4:07:19 PM