The Women in IP Law Dinner is Coming to South Florida

Thanks to Stearns Weaver Miller Weissler Alhadeff & Sitterson for agreeing to host a dinner in Fort Lauderdale. Invites for all the dinners will be sent out shortly so make sure to save the date - February 11, 2010 - and sign-up as soon as you receive the invitation because space usually fills quickly. 

Additional Host Confirmed for 2010 Women in IP Law Dinner

Thank you to Faegre & Benson for volunteering to co-host the Denver dinner with Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP. Both firms look forward to welcoming Denver-area attorneys on February 11, 2010.

This year's National Director of the dinners, Hathaway Russell, is continuing to sign-up cities and we are still working to exceed the number of locations that hosted dinners last year - 26! If you are interested in hosting, please contact Hathaway at hrussell@foleyhoag.com for more information.

Communications and Electronic Outreach Subcommittee

The Women in IP Law Communications and Electronic Outreach Subcommittee has been formed! Members include Randi Karpinia, Carey Jordan, Alyson Barker, Sarah Foley, Iris Mok, Eileen Matthews, and Bea Swedlow. Goals of this subcommittee include opening up the Women in IP Law Committee to members who cannot necessarily attend a meeting in person; and providing multiple communication options for committee members to receive and share information thereby allowing members to utilize whichever format(s) they are most comfortable with. If you have ideas, questions, or comments, please contact one of us.

Another City Added to the Roster of Dinner Locations

Thank you to Thompson Coburn LLP for stepping up and offering to host in St. Louis. If you live in St. Louis, please save-the-date for February 11, 2010.

Additional Cities/Hosts Confirmed for the 2010 Women in IP Law Dinners

Four more locations have been added to this year's Women in IP Law Dinners taking place on February 11, 2010. Thank you to the following firms for agreeing to host.

San Diego (Morrison & Foerster LLP)
Canada (location TBD) (Borden Ladner Gervais LLP)
Los Angeles (Irell & Manella LLP)
Orange County (Irell & Manella LLP)

If you are located in one of these cities, make sure to mark your calendar and save-the-date for an evening of networking, mentoring, and friendship.

Interesting & Positive Article on Women in IP Law

The Challenge For Women IP Lawyers

Photos from the Annual Meeting & Request for Future Meeting Ideas

Thank you to everyone who attended the Annual Meeting committee breakfast. For the first time ever we had a sold out event that was standing room only. An extra special thank you to our panelists and moderator for sharing their wisdom about what it means to be at the top of your game, how to get there, and how to help other men and women in the profession to achieve the same level of career success.

We also had the opportunity to roll out our new blog and to make announcements about the upcoming Women in IP Law dinners. We still have a couple of cities without hosts so if you are interested in hosting or know of someone who is, please contact Hathaway Russell (hrussell@foleyhoag) for more information.

Last but not least, planning is already under way for the Mid-Winter Institute in sunny La Quinta (January 27th-30th). Make sure to mark your calendars and please post comments with any meeting ideas you have.

New Book for Book Club

It's Not a Glass Ceiling, It's a Sticky Floor: Free Yourself From the Hidden Behaviors Sabotaging Your Career Success

by Rebecca Shambaugh

Review From Publishers Weekly:

Forget the old boys' club: women are the ones holding themselves back from top-level career success, advises Shambaugh, president and CEO of consulting firm Shambaugh Leadership. Though more businesswomen are in successful positions of power, they are still lagging behind men at the highest levels: more than a third of Fortune 500 managers and more than half of those with multidisciplinary master's degrees are women, yet women hold only 13% of Fortune 500 CEO positions. This lack of forward motion is due more substantially to women's own career-inhibiting behavior than to cultural impediments, Shambaugh claims. Women are more likely than men to shy away from leadership roles, to get bogged down in perfectionism and to avoid career-boosting changes out of a misplaced sense of loyalty. Through a series of exercises and self-appraisals, Shambaugh guides readers with executive suite aspirations through an evaluation of their own behaviors and skills, gauging which serve their ambitions and which are holding them back. Emphasizing strategic relationships, communication and the elements of executive presence, she writes in an encouraging tone with a refreshing lack of blame, making this a satisfying read for women stuck in middle management limbo.

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Interested in Getting Involved?

The Women in IP Law Committee is always looking for volunteers. If you are interested in becoming more active, please think about joining one of our subcommittees, becoming a liaison, or helping out on a one time project. Please contact Carey Jordan (carey.jordan@bakerbotts) or Alyson Barker (barkera@howrey.com), for more information or to sign-up.

Save The Date- February 11, 2010 for the 3rd Annual AIPLA Women in IP Law Dinners

Thank you to all of our confirmed hosts:

-Atlanta (King & Spalding)
-Cambridge (Finnegan Henderson Farabow)
-Chicago (Foley & Lardner LLP)
-Dallas (Haynes and Boone, LLP)
-Denver (Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP )
-Houston (Howrey LLP)
-Minneapolis (Merchant and Gould)
-Palo Alto (Howrey LLP)
-Pittsburgh (Pepper Hamilton LLP)
-Portland (Klarquist Sparkman, LLP)
-Philadelphia (Connolly Bove Lodge & Hurtz LLP)
-Reston (Finnegan Henderson Farabow)
-Salt Lake City (Workman Nydegger)
-Seattle (Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP)
-Washington, D.C. (Morrison Foerster LLP)

We Need Your Help to Host in the Following Cities:

-Ann Arbor
-Baltimore
-Boston
-Irvine
-Indianapolis
-Los Angeles
-NY City
-San Francisco
-St. Louis
-San Diego
-Toronto
-Tampa
-And anywhere else someone wants to host


Please contact Hathaway Russell (hrussell@foleyhoag.com) if your firm is interested in hosting for 2010.

Interesting Article Related to the Panel Discussion at the Committee Meeting

Please use the link below to access the article that was mentioned during the committee meeting.

http://www.multiculturaladvantage.com/leader/workplace-leadership/Getting-To-The-Top-Strategies-for-Breaking-Through-The-Glass-Ceiling.asp

LAUNCH OF WOMEN IN IP LAW LINKEDIN GROUP

In a continued effort to provide multiple mechanisms for connecting, participating, and learning, AIPLA’s Women in IP Law Committee announces the launch of its LinkedIn Group. This group website hopes to strengthen the committee’s ability to facilitate and empower women in their practice of intellectual property law.

The AIPLA Women in IP Law LinkedIn Group will function as a forum for members to have real-world conversations about news, issues, opportunities, events, and referrals of information. The Group Website includes online discussions, giving all a chance to discuss hot topics of interest. Members can post interesting news articles and website links for discussion. Group members can share presentations, be a resource by connecting colleagues to one another, let people know what you're up to professionally, and gather and provide professional recommendations.

To join the AIPLA Women in IP Law LinkedIn Group, follow this link http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2108091&trk=hb_side_g

The AIPLA Women in IP Law Committee looks forward to “meeting with you” online.

AIPLA Annual Meeting Breakfast with the Corporate Practice Committee - Friday, October 16th at 6:45 am

Women at the Top of Their Game: How to Get There, How to Stay There, & How to Help Others Along The Way


The Women in IP Law Committee and the Corporate Practice Committee is pleased to present a panel discussion entitled “Women at the Top of Their Game: How to Get There, How to Stay There, & How to Help Others Along Their Way” moderated by Harrie Samaras. Please join us for breakfast and to share in the experiences of our panel, including Margaret (‘Meg’) Boulware (Baker & McKenzie LLP), Cynthia Weber (Sughrue Mion, PLLC), Mary-Ellen Devlin (Boehringer-Ingelheim USA Corporation) Georgann S. Grunebach (Fox Group) and Kimberly Van Voorhis (Morrison & Forrester). In particular, our panel will share their experiences and perspectives on management and breaking the glass ceiling. We look forward to seeing you.

All are welcome to attend.

State of the Profession Survey: Retention and Advancement of Women in IP Law

We've all seen studies about the retention and advancement of female lawyers but have you ever wondered whether those statistics apply to female IP lawyers? The sciences tend to be male dominated but does that have an impact on women in IP law? The committee wanted to find out so we formed a subcommittee that is working on putting together a survey for female IP lawyers. The goal of the survey is to find out what factors influence a woman's decision to stay involved in the practice of law, what factors determine whether a woman stays with a firm or goes in-house, what factors determine whether a woman advances in the profession? If you have ideas for specific survey questions or topics, please post them here. As soon as the survey is completed it will be sent to all committee members and will also be posted on this site.

2010 Women in IP Law Dinners

The 2009 dinners were held in 26 cities and we are hoping to reach 30 cities this year. In August 2009 we will be reaching out to last year's sponsors and those firms who indicated an interest in hosting in 2010. If you want to be added to the list of potential sponsors, please e-mail the Women in IP Law Dinners subcommittee and we will make sure to be in touch with you. Make sure to follow this blog for posts on sponsor sign-ups, available cities, and save-the-dates.

Book Club- The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much? by Leslie Bennetts.

Welcome to the inaugural post for the Women in IP Committee's blog. This is a forum for sharing information and engaging in dialogue. You are free to identify yourself in your comments or to post anonymously but please remember to be respectful of all commenters. Below are the discussion notes. Please share your comments and experiences.

Ch. I. Back to the Future: “It’s a 1950s Life!” Chapter One details the life of Margaret Hein- a seemingly contented stay at home wife, who has been at home ever since her first child was born. Many women struggle with returning to work and leaving an infant at home. There has been an increase in the number of women staying at home, and returning to the 1950s lifestyle. A downside to this mentality is that women are losing their financial security, while the children and/or family do not see any real benefits. The media often fuels the perception that staying at home is the ideal situation for a woman. Reportedly, seven out of ten women polled said they would stay at home with their children if they could. However, it appears that many women stop working even before they have children. Many American women believe that depending on a husband for financial support is a viable option, despite the fact that divorce is a good possibility. Many women incorrectly presume they can resurrect their careers easily when their children are older. Ironically, society does not support low income mothers staying at home. It is only the privileged where full-time motherhood is promoted and expected. Typically, it is presumed that a woman will give up her career over her husband’s, even if the husband is only making a fraction of what the woman earns.

II. Opting Out “It’s Like the Slaughter of the Lambs” “The Opt-Out Revolution” is a recent phenomena where highly educated women are choosing to opt-out of careers once they are married, sometimes even before having children. In 2005, a survey reported that 60 percent of young women interviewed for a study of Yale University students were planning to cut back on work or stop entirely once they had children. There are no similar stories about men; “we don’t ask men to choose or even to agonize over it.” There is a false message going out to young women that you can’t have both a family and a career. We program our girls early on to be interested in boyfriends and cliques, while we provide our boys with access to science fiction and fantasy books. The boys are groomed very early on to be achievers. There’s also a double standard in parenting. A woman is sometimes judged not to be a good mother if she doesn’t stay at home with her children. The same feeling does not pertain to men. The social system makes mothers feel inadequate. There is on ongoing tension between “working” moms and “stay at home” moms. Stay at home moms often portray their decision to stay home as purely for the sake of the children. However, when you go deeper into why they left their careers, many stay at home mothers admit that they were bored or unhappy with their jobs prior to quitting their jobs. Some women do decide to stay at home as a last resort. For instance, they asked for part-time and did not get it. They were stigmatized and marginalized in their career track. In some careers, the idea of working less than 50 to 60 hour work weeks was not within the realm of possibilities. Women are participating in creating this culture. If you hate your job, the workplace is family unfriendly, you want another child, and your husband won’t share the workload, you begin convincing yourself that quitting might be a viable option. Instead, women should ask “How can I get my husband to share more of the workload?”

III. But What If… “I Never Thought About That” Some stay at home mothers feel a sense of not being a person. Working women are perceived as having more to say. While the working women who have little children are struggling, if they quit, they have a harder time re-entering the workforce at the level they left. Also, many women become divorced with no direction or forethought as to how to support themselves and their children. Many stay at home moms don’t even consider that possibility. Statistically, women need to consider the fact that more women are single and living without a husband, than are married. In 2005, nearly 60 million women were single and living without a husband compared with 57.5 million living with a spouse. Discussion Questions. 1. How would giving up your income affect your family’s lifestyle? How would it affect you? 2. Have you ever thought about giving up your career to stay at home? Why did you decide not to stay at home? 3. How would giving up your career affect your economic dependency? 4. Have you experienced the “Opt-Out” revolution? What has been your experience with women who have opted to stay at home? Have you felt judged by stay at home moms? 5. Have you experienced the double standard in the way we raise our children? How can we raise our girls to be more interested in intellectual and career endeavors as we do for our boys? 6. Does your husband share the household work load? How can you get your husband to share more of the home responsibility?