Speaker 1: Hey, it's Rebecca Greenfield, the host of The Paycheck. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the third installment of our conversation series about women, work,
Speaker 1: money and sexism. This week we bring you our final
Speaker 1: chat for now. The story of pay for women in
Speaker 1: law is a familiar one. Female lawyers make a lot
Speaker 1: less money than the men do. Women only make up
Speaker 1: about of partners at firms, and among partners there's a
Speaker 1: forty four percent pay gap, all of which makes Michelle
Speaker 1: Roberts's career remarkable. Michelle grew up in public housing in
Speaker 1: the Bronx and went on to build a reputation as
Speaker 1: a skilled trial attorney. She became the first woman to
Speaker 1: have the NBA Players Association, that's the union that represents
Speaker 1: the players when they negotiate with the NBA. She talks
Speaker 1: with Emily Basilon, a lawyer by training who chose a
Speaker 1: different path. She became a journalist and is also a
Speaker 1: lecturer at Yale Law School. We're going to pick up
Speaker 1: the conversation with Michelle talking about her early career. When
Speaker 1: I decided to become a lawyer, I frankly decided to
Speaker 1: be a public defender. My background was such that I
Speaker 1: had grown up with people who, when they did get
Speaker 1: in trouble, could not afford good lawyers. And so best
Speaker 1: job I've ever had. I loved it. I did it
Speaker 1: for eight years. It's a very tough job to do,
Speaker 1: especially as you begin to represent people that I'm charged
Speaker 1: with more serious offenses and and the stakes become higher.
Speaker 1: So at some point, I frankly just punked out. I
Speaker 1: couldn't take anymore. So I decided to do civil and
Speaker 1: that was the transition to two law firms UM, initially
Speaker 1: with small firms and then ultimately I went and moved
Speaker 1: on to law firms. And frankly, the only reason, and
Speaker 1: it's just true that I decided to go to big law,
Speaker 1: was I had two nieces who I promised my mom
Speaker 1: I would help to put through college. So I ended
Speaker 1: up at scanton Um doing trial work. By doing it
Speaker 1: within the context of corporate and commercial law. I enjoyed
Speaker 1: law school. I suspect you did too, which is why
Speaker 1: you're still in that environment. But there was no way
Speaker 1: in the world I could consider having gone through that
Speaker 1: process and not engage immediately in the practice of law.
Speaker 1: And as I understand your transition UM after law school,
Speaker 1: you didn't kind of want to practice huh honey, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's even perhaps stranger than that, or I wonder if
Speaker 1: you'll think it's strangers. So I graduated from college and
Speaker 1: worked as a journalist for four years, and I didn't
Speaker 1: see an obvious way to move into the kind of
Speaker 1: X job that I wanted. I didn't even know this
Speaker 1: word at the time, but I wanted to be like
Speaker 1: a narrative, long form magazine journalists. So when I went
Speaker 1: to law school was um a kind of act of
Speaker 1: not exactly desperation, but like a way of of restarting.
Speaker 1: I wanted to go back to school, but also I
Speaker 1: was hoping to get a better job in journalism, which
Speaker 1: was a little bit nutty and um and not the
Speaker 1: cheapest way to arrive at that destination. But I also
Speaker 1: was opened the idea of practicing law, and so I
Speaker 1: thought when I started, like, well, see what I think
Speaker 1: about this, And what became clear to me pretty quickly
Speaker 1: was that while I was really interested in the ideas,
Speaker 1: I was not really cut out to be a lawyer.
Speaker 1: I never wanted to stand up in a trial, right,
Speaker 1: So I think the really thrilling things about being a
Speaker 1: lawyer were kind of not a great match for my skills,
Speaker 1: and and then I got lucky and I ended up
Speaker 1: getting to do the things in journalism I was hoping
Speaker 1: to do in my own work life. The thing that
Speaker 1: has bothered me the most has been how little I
Speaker 1: have known about the salaries of the people around me,
Speaker 1: because I've worked for private companies at which that information
Speaker 1: is not available, And so there have been moments where
Speaker 1: I've been, well, I actually care, like probably too much
Speaker 1: about fairness, and so when fairness it can be debilitating, right,
Speaker 1: you know, to me, I'm not someone who cares about
Speaker 1: making a lot of money, but when I think that
Speaker 1: other people around me are getting paid better than I
Speaker 1: get suspicious and um ornery about it. Just about every
Speaker 1: law firm, the higher earners are men and women have
Speaker 1: to ask themselves if that's really because of the reality
Speaker 1: that they bring in more money? Um, is it really
Speaker 1: that they are more valuable than than than than female
Speaker 1: partners are because of despair already is so glaring you
Speaker 1: can't you can't not notice it. But for me as
Speaker 1: a woman, because I like you, I mean, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to pretend I didn't care about what I was making,
Speaker 1: but I frankly never dreamed that I was going to
Speaker 1: be making the money I ultimately made, and so therefore
Speaker 1: thought I was lucky until I saw what some of
Speaker 1: my male counterparts were making, and I said, well, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, okay, now what what's what's the real differentiator here?
Speaker 1: And how did you find out? Like? How does that?
Speaker 1: Because the partners are told, um what what each partner
Speaker 1: is making, so you you knew and you either thought, well,
Speaker 1: I'm lucky to be here, or you did what I
Speaker 1: did sometimes and said, well why is he why all
Speaker 1: those he's making more money than I am? My momb lines,
Speaker 1: I think it's probably it's uncomfortable. It creates a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of friction, and for some people that
Speaker 1: creates a lot of self doubt and wonder about value.
Speaker 1: But I think at the end of the day, there
Speaker 1: should be transparency about compensation so people can be satisfied
Speaker 1: or not satisfied that they're being treated fairly. What I
Speaker 1: ended up doing was deciding that I could and I
Speaker 1: didn't have the energy to worry about whether or not
Speaker 1: I was not being compensated at a level because I
Speaker 1: was a woman, or because I was black, or both.
Speaker 1: But I ultimately decided to do was decide what I
Speaker 1: thought I was worth and to pick a number that
Speaker 1: would make me feel as if I was being valued appropriately.
Speaker 1: And I simply would say that, then when calm time
Speaker 1: came around, this is my number, And how did you
Speaker 1: arrive at that number? I'm not going to pretend I
Speaker 1: didn't take into consideration what the men around me were making.
Speaker 1: So if there were someone in in in the in
Speaker 1: the in the litigation group whose practice was as close
Speaker 1: to mine as I could at least fathom, and if
Speaker 1: he was making X, I wanted at least X to
Speaker 1: the extent I could, I would try to find comparables
Speaker 1: um and I did find comparables in at least in
Speaker 1: terms of their practice. I insisted that I got at
Speaker 1: least that number. Now, there would be occasions when I
Speaker 1: would say, you know, I didn't have that greater year,
Speaker 1: and so maybe I'm not necessarily going to get the
Speaker 1: same number that Joe is, but I needed to at
Speaker 1: least find out what I was comfortable with and and
Speaker 1: and no matter what Joe was getting, if you get
Speaker 1: this number, will you stay? If you don't get that number,
Speaker 1: will you will you leave? And that's kind of how
Speaker 1: I did it. I mean, I just in other words,
Speaker 1: I decided what my value was and and and then
Speaker 1: that was the number I've lived with. How does it
Speaker 1: work in your world? Um, it's much more mysterious. Right,
Speaker 1: So what you just described there is a frankness that's
Speaker 1: bracing and perhaps useful. But then I also wonder if
Speaker 1: it leads some people down the path of like obsessing
Speaker 1: about money and comparisons all the time. Right, And you can,
Speaker 1: but you know you can, but you can stop by
Speaker 1: saying I mean, I think I think it's it's silly
Speaker 1: not to be aware of what other people are being compensated.
Speaker 1: But you need to stop at some point and say,
Speaker 1: look that aside, do I want to stay here? And
Speaker 1: what's the number that will keep me here? And you
Speaker 1: kind of do that by not being necessarily guided by
Speaker 1: the comparables, but cognizant of the comfortables, but really just
Speaker 1: doing it some internal sort of self self evaluation of
Speaker 1: where you think you deserve to be in the compensations
Speaker 1: in scale. Well, what I like about that too is
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure of that. They're about the research
Speaker 1: showing that women tend to not negotiate as hard for
Speaker 1: themselves when they get new jobs, or when they're trying
Speaker 1: to negotiate raises and you're talking about finding a way
Speaker 1: to value yourself. That then you gives you the sense
Speaker 1: of entitlement. And I mean that in a positive way,
Speaker 1: to like go in and ask for it and kind
Speaker 1: of make sure you get it right. I mean, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, I had alternatives. Not everybody
Speaker 1: has that luxury. I don't have any children, so I
Speaker 1: had some flexibility in terms of being able to take
Speaker 1: some risks. But then, and that's kind of how I
Speaker 1: resolved it. I will tell you that in my current position,
Speaker 1: I have both men and women on my staff. Our
Speaker 1: rule is that if you want to ask for a
Speaker 1: raise or bonus, the owner is on you. Over every
Speaker 1: single year. I've been doing this for almost five years now.
Speaker 1: They some women ask all the men do. Now with
Speaker 1: young women, that's not the way we operate. And I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe and I don't have as many millennials
Speaker 1: working for me as perhaps you're you're accustomed to dealing
Speaker 1: with Emily, Are we getting better at this or not?
Speaker 1: That isn't being able to as women insist that we
Speaker 1: are valuable and and ask and ask four things like
Speaker 1: raises and bonuses. I do notice a shift in how
Speaker 1: young women think about issues like sexual harassment and their
Speaker 1: sense of the way they should be treated in the
Speaker 1: workplace and actually person you know, in their personal lives.
Speaker 1: And I just don't think they put up with things
Speaker 1: that I put up with in the nineties. And I
Speaker 1: thought I was like a perfectly liberated person in the nineties.
Speaker 1: And I watched them and I feel a lot of
Speaker 1: respect and admiration for their unwillingness to tolerate like crappy behavior.
Speaker 1: So here's the question I wanted to ask, Michelle, as
Speaker 1: you are a woman, like literally in a man's world.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know the NBA in the offices can
Speaker 1: be um, you know, there can be when women there,
Speaker 1: but like on the basketball court, that is not the case.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you are the first woman to have
Speaker 1: your job. Just seems like that must be true. And
Speaker 1: I wonder what that was like for you coming in
Speaker 1: and how much you thought about, you know, your own
Speaker 1: gender identity in that context. You know, it's gotten better.
Speaker 1: But the legal profession, especially the areas that I practiced in,
Speaker 1: are so male. I mean, they're not a whole lot
Speaker 1: of my words, girl, trial lawyers, and so I grew
Speaker 1: up professionally, at least working in environments where most of
Speaker 1: my my my colleagues were men, most of my competitors
Speaker 1: were men, and frankly, even when I as the public defender,
Speaker 1: most of my clients were men. So I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of been where I've been for the last
Speaker 1: forty years. One of the funny things that that happened
Speaker 1: as I was interviewing for my current job, because it
Speaker 1: was obvious to the players that I was a girl.
Speaker 1: There were players that I asked me, well, you know,
Speaker 1: how are you going to be able to work in
Speaker 1: this in this space as the only woman. You might
Speaker 1: find yourself the only woman in a boardroom or in
Speaker 1: a conference room or at a meeting. Um, are you
Speaker 1: gonna be able to handle that? And I just started laughing.
Speaker 1: I said, dude, you know, what do you think I've
Speaker 1: been doing for the last forty years? In my practice,
Speaker 1: there are very few girls that I work with, and
Speaker 1: so for me, it was just a natural, a sad
Speaker 1: but natural extension of of the of the professional life
Speaker 1: life that I've lived. You know, the good news is good,
Speaker 1: and I said good with quotes. The good news is
Speaker 1: there's a lot of still ignorant thinking about the competence
Speaker 1: of women, and so there are men that stupidly allow
Speaker 1: themselves to be disadvantaged by believing that I'm disadvantaged. So
Speaker 1: that works for me. At some point you just sort
Speaker 1: of it's sad, But you get used to be the
Speaker 1: only one, don't you. Yeah, I mean I think I
Speaker 1: haven't been the only one very often in like a
Speaker 1: work setting. I would think that I'm sure I could
Speaker 1: also get used to it, um, but I would think
Speaker 1: it would be hard to be the only woman on
Speaker 1: a regular basis, um kind of swimming in a sea
Speaker 1: of men for the reasons you said about people underestimating
Speaker 1: your intellectual ability, but also just like that, you know,
Speaker 1: could get a little like foreign or I wasn't gonna
Speaker 1: I don't know. I lonely is quite the right word.
Speaker 1: But they're just like I don't know, there are just
Speaker 1: certain things you don't have in common with the people
Speaker 1: around you in in that environment. That's been the case
Speaker 1: since I left left the projects, right, I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: been my life and I do say sadly, I've gotten
Speaker 1: used to it. I mean I've found myself hour into
Speaker 1: a meeting and realize that I'm the only woman in
Speaker 1: the meeting or the only person I'm calling in the meeting.
Speaker 1: I mean, you just it just stops being something that
Speaker 1: that I've become aware of. And I kind of think
Speaker 1: it's good news because at least it means I'm so
Speaker 1: consumed by what I'm doing that I'm not being distracted
Speaker 1: by what other people think is the oddity of me totally.
Speaker 1: And the fact that you brought up the project projects
Speaker 1: makes me think about how you're dealing with this in
Speaker 1: terms of class as well as race and gender right
Speaker 1: like there, And if you let any of those things
Speaker 1: stop you, you might be come overwhelmed, like you have
Speaker 1: to figure out how to transcend all that you do
Speaker 1: because and you do by understanding that it's not your problem.
Speaker 1: I mean, someone said a couple of days ago, I
Speaker 1: think I may have been watching TV that if you
Speaker 1: I think but poorly of me because I'm black, that
Speaker 1: is your problem. It only becomes my problem if you
Speaker 1: have some ability to do something about it. One of
Speaker 1: the first clients I had was a young African American
Speaker 1: um who was charged with some crime. And I'm in
Speaker 1: juvenile court and there was a judge who I had
Speaker 1: been warned about that was incredibly sexist, incredibly racist, and
Speaker 1: just a nasty old son of a bee who was
Speaker 1: behaving exonsistent with everything I've been told about him, and
Speaker 1: was treating me horribly. And I was paralyzed by knowing
Speaker 1: that not merely that I was being treated badly, but
Speaker 1: that this guy was doing that to me because I
Speaker 1: was I was black, and because I was a woman. UM.
Speaker 1: And I didn't perform because I was so stunned by
Speaker 1: what was happening to me in a public courtroom. UM.
Speaker 1: And I kind of came to when I saw the
Speaker 1: marshall taking my client back into the into the lock up,
Speaker 1: and I realized I hadn't performed, And I decided that
Speaker 1: I hadn't performed because of this judge. And I had allowed,
Speaker 1: but this judge felt about me to impact my ability
Speaker 1: to to represent this young kid, and I vowed I
Speaker 1: would never let that happen again. You made a point
Speaker 1: earlier about you perhaps want the world to be too fair,
Speaker 1: and how do you put it? How do you take
Speaker 1: that and put it on the shelf so that you
Speaker 1: can perform, I mean, and how do you not have
Speaker 1: to do that? In ways that I think I have
Speaker 1: to do that in order to get from step A
Speaker 1: to B. My answer to that is that I have
Speaker 1: channeled my deep sense of wanting more fairness and justice
Speaker 1: into the kinds of stories I write. So a lot
Speaker 1: of it has just been this sense that, you know,
Speaker 1: what I can do with all the luck, because I
Speaker 1: really do think of most of his luck that I've
Speaker 1: been given is like try to make try to wake
Speaker 1: people up to the problems and injustices and lack of
Speaker 1: fairness I see around me. And so I you know,
Speaker 1: I think in the end that like so many difficult
Speaker 1: um qualities, that an obsession with fairness can be a handicap,
Speaker 1: but it can also be a real strength because it
Speaker 1: can kind of propel you forward in our complicated times.
Speaker 1: That makes that makes a lot of sense. I just
Speaker 1: I suspect that's the reason I probably as much as
Speaker 1: I love my current job, and frankly I love my
Speaker 1: other jobs, the jobs. The job I loved the most
Speaker 1: was as a public defender, because you know, I used
Speaker 1: to say I was a civil rights lawyer when I
Speaker 1: was a public defender, because I really believe that there's
Speaker 1: nothing that promotes civil rights more than making sure that,
Speaker 1: for example, people charge with crimes or don't don't find
Speaker 1: themselves suffering because of their inability to pay. Compensation is
Speaker 1: how the workplace is supposed to tell us our value,
Speaker 1: but for women, that system is broken, so we have
Speaker 1: to find other ways to measure our self worth. For
Speaker 1: Michelle Roberts, that meant coming up with a number that
Speaker 1: would make her feel good about her self. For many women,
Speaker 1: it means seeking out work that will fulfill us since
Speaker 1: our paychecks might not. Like Sally Crotcheck said in an
Speaker 1: earlier episode, women report that the number one reason they
Speaker 1: accept a job is meaning and purpose, and many of
Speaker 1: the women in our series have talked about that. But
Speaker 1: finding meaning in your work is a privilege, and for
Speaker 1: many working women, we need to get paid too. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to our conversation series. If you like our
Speaker 1: show or have anything to add to the conversation, head
Speaker 1: on over Table Podcasts or wherever you listen to rate,
Speaker 1: review and subscribe. This show was edited by Franchick the Leavie,
Speaker 1: produced by Toper Foreheads, and hosted by me Rebecca Greenfield.
Speaker 1: Janet Paskin moderated today's conversation. We also had production help
Speaker 1: from Jillian Goodman and Liz Smith. Francesco Levie is Bloomberg's
Speaker 1: head of Poppa