New head of WBAI wants group to shine light on issues

The newest head of the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois thinks the profession can still do better.

While about 51 percent of law students are women, according to American Bar Association data, 45 percent of associates are women — and only 18 percent of equity partners are women.

WBAI President Adria East Mossing, a partner at Mossing & Navarre LLC, said the community can improve those numbers.

“If you have business, that means power,” she said. “You want to see women in decision-making roles.”

The current lack of women in high-level roles has its roots in decisions made years earlier, said Jeanine Stathopoulos, WBAI’s recording secretary and legal counsel at ZS Associates Inc. in Evanston.

“The women who would be at the top in those management positions came up in a time where they were experiencing overt discrimination,” Stathopoulos said.

When Mossing started practicing law 28 years ago, only one or two of the 50 equity partners were women.

“I was told, ‘Don’t wear pantsuits,’ because some of the partners in my group didn’t like women wearing pants,” she said.

There were also very few women who were married or who continued practicing law after having children, which meant fewer female role models who could teach how they balanced work and life.

In the courtroom, too, Mossing said she was and is conscious of the potential gender biases of jurors.

“Especially as a trial lawyer, you’re constantly worrying how you’ll be perceived,” she said. “I don’t think a man ever goes into a courtroom and thinks, ‘Am I being perceived as too aggressive? Am I talking too loudly?’”

She has been a WBAI member for more than 15 years and on the WBAI Board of Directors for more than 10. She founded her own firm in 2009. And she’s married with three children.

“I think there really has been a light shed that you really just need to give women opportunities,” she said.

Shining that light is a mission of the WBAI, where individual memberships and the list of supporting law firms are steadily growing.

“More and more large firms and small firms are realizing these issues exist and need to be addressed,” Mossing said.

The WBAI’s 102nd annual dinner on June 8 was a sold-out affair with 768 people in attendance, Mossing said. The crowd included four of seven Illinois Supreme Court justices.

In past years, Mossing said, attendance hovered closer to 600 or 700 people.

This year, Mossing said she and the board plan to create smaller WBAI events with less formal programs so that members can meet and talk more intimately with one another.

She described an upcoming event where a personal stylist and clothes designers will talk about professional women’s wardrobes, then members will drink cocktails and network.

Mossing wants WBAI members to get to know each other’s businesses and refer clients back and forth.

“The people who are in the organization are good people to know, professionally and personally,” said Elizabeth D. Winiarski, an associate at Jones, Day and a director on the WBAI board.

Winiarski, who joined the WBAI back in 2008 when she was still in law school, says it’s an organization that grew with her.

There’s a diversity of members — law students, clerks, attorneys, partners and judges — and every time Winiarski has considered a career change, she said there’s been a WBAI member to talk to who’s been there and can tell her about their experience.

“I think it’s equally inspiring to not only celebrate the success of the top women in their fields, but also to give back and extend a hand to help the next generation of women get where they are,” she said.

As for the future of the bar group, Winiarski said its focus will change along with the times. For example, Winiarski hopes equal pay for women will become the norm so the WBAI can focus its advocacy efforts elsewhere.

Mossing said she wants the WBAI to push for more women in leadership positions in all areas of the law, including corporations and the judiciary.

And Kathryn L. Conway, an associate at Power, Rogers & Smith P.C. and a WBAI director, said she wants more attention on female lawyers who start families.

“We see a drop-off — even in our membership, but certainly in the profession — around childbearing age,” Conway said. “And I think the reason is clear: That that’s a lot for one woman to put in place.”

Stathopolous, who is on maternity leave with her 7-week-old son George, said the pressures of parenthood can conflict with work demands.

For now, parenthood still appears to interfere more with mothers’ careers than with fathers’.

“With my kids when they were younger, mom was the first one they called or wanted to talk to, even though my husband was very actively involved in child-rearing,” Mossing said.

The WBAI has male members, and about half the guests at the annual dinner were men. Mossing sees them as critical to the group’s goals by recognizing the disparities that exist and working to create more opportunity.

“No one can do it alone,” Mossing said. “Without their support, I could never have been an equity partner, because it was all men at the top.”