Since women lawyers pull their own weight in the genre of solo and small firm blogs (along with me, there are my colleagues and friends, Susan Cartier Liebel and Inspired Solo’s Sheryl Schelin, I was surprised to learn that Few Women Choose to Practice Solo (NLJ 9/13/07). A recent study released by NALP revealed that women comprise only 34 percent of solo practitioners, while 77 percent of lawyers working for public interest groups are women.
Why don’t more women choose solo practice? After all, you’d think that women looking for work life balance would find solo practice appealing, because when you work for yourself, you gain control over the hours you work and the hours you handle. My own belief is that women themselves are driving lawyers away from solo practice. As I posted here previously, when women demand equality in the profession, they’re usually referring to equality at big law firms. Women who start and head their own practices, no matter how prominent, simply don’t count. As a result, younger women don’t view solo practice as an option.
I wonder if women aren’t more concerned about some of the incidental costs soloing presents, such as paying for one’s own health insurance. I seem to recall a study indicating that women are much more likely to be concerned about being underinsured than men are, and certainly women soloing out of a desire to achieve better work-life balance might also be concerned about not being able to provide adequate health care/life insurance/etc. for their children and spouses.
It may be that there are solutions to this particular problem–for instance, group insurance amy be available through a professional association–but I am unaware of them.