Women in the workforce have immeasurably changed the world in so many ways. Historically, they were limited in what career path they could choose, regardless of how talented they were. Today, there are far fewer barriers, but the push for change is by no means over. Despite the growing number of women in legal fields, though, there are still discrepancies that need to be addressed.

Robert L. McKenna III is an attorney and a steadfast champion of women. As a founding partner of the  liability defense law firm Kjar, McKenna & Stockalper LLP (KMS), he made a commitment to level the playing field for women in his practice. We’ll look at the realities of the situation and how McKenna is using his personal experience to be a part of the solution.

Very Toxic

Robert L. McKenna has described law as being a “mostly man kind of environment”. He’s seen some major changes in the system, but the overall culture is historically toxic. The culture has kept some women from even thinking about law as a potential career pathway. Even more tragically, it can cause female lawyers to quit before they even have a chance to make a difference, either with their clients or their colleagues.

Big Jumps, Small Steps 

In 1970, about 3% of women were lawyers. In 2022, 38.3% of women are lawyers (according to 2Civility). It doesn’t end there though. Because women are outnumbering men in law schools, women are well poised to dominate the field in the future.

However, just because there are more female lawyers doesn’t necessarily mean that equality has been achieved. At the top of the corporate ladder, there are still very few female partners. Women aren’t put on the management track in law firms, even though there are so many women who could take these slots. Less than a quarter of all women have a significant financial stake at a partner level.

This is a larger trend that you can see in numerous sectors. Even when gaps start to close in certain regions, the average salaries still put women at a distinct disadvantage.

The Life of a Parent 

In addition to being an attorney, Robert L. McKenna is a single father of a daughter, Katie, and son, Matthew. From the very beginning, he taught his children that it was their talents, interests, and work ethic that mattered. As far as he was concerned, their future success was not a question of their assigned sex at birth.

To show his children how much they mattered and to model the behavior he wanted to see in them, he took leadership positions in both his children’s respective Boy Scouts’ and Girl Scouts’ activities. As the only father who would go to the Girl Scout campouts, it made his daughter feel special that he would take such an active interest in her life.

Of course, he couldn’t be his daughter’s only role model. Luckily, there were women that broke the mold that Katie could look up to, whether she was interested in law or not. There are women who have managed to overcome the odds to get to the top. Once they’re there, it’s on their shoulders to start carving out better policies for everyone.

People like Britta Stanton, a partner at a law firm in Dallas, remark that the best way to get people to move up is to set the right example. When Stanton drafted a maternity leave policy for the partners of the company, it was a message that having a family didn’t have to get in the way of people’s professional accomplishments. She talked about how there can be this hesitancy out there, even when people are aware that change is possible. Rewriting the rules is going to cost people more than a few calories, but it’s ultimately the only way that the world will start to shift toward a truly equal playing field.

Why Inclusion Matters 

Women don’t just bring a fresh perspective with them on certain matters, they can bring balance in multiple ways. Robert McKenna has said that leadership roles need to be intentionally filled with people who bring different skills and talents to the table. When it comes to the hiring practices at his law firm, Kjar, McKenna & Stockalper, he’s made it a point to go above and beyond to welcome people at the most pivotal point in their career.

“The overall culture is creating a place where people who are young and ambitious and want to be trial lawyers can come and succeed, where they will have access to our clients and our carriers.” That kind of access might be denied at other firms in hopes of weeding out certain people, but not at KMS. McKenna went on to say, “If they have the desire to go in a courtroom and try a case, we’ll take them with us to train them, and then we’ll give them opportunities to go try those cases.”

Unfortunately, Robert L. McKenna knows why so few women end up where he is today. When he was younger, it didn’t even occur to him that he couldn’t be a dad and a lawyer. Talking to women, he found out that they would choose not to have kids because they wanted to put their career as a lawyer first.

He was horrified that women felt they couldn’t have both, especially given how much joy his children bring to his life. “Work can’t satisfy all of [my] needs. So I made a point [to make women] feel valued, and respected, and appreciated.” Most importantly, though, he used his position to give them opportunities whenever and wherever possible.

McKenna commented that when he started as a lawyer, women may have felt compelled to mislead their colleagues and superiors that they were planning to have children. They wouldn’t hang pictures of their kids or decorate in so-called feminine tones. McKenna set his own example at KMS by putting his diplomas in a closet and pictures of his kids all over the place.

The Old-Boy Network 

The constant call for equality is backed up by an overall frustration about who exactly is at the top. McKenna is white, educated, and in a certain socioeconomic class. He’s the first to say that these attributes have afforded him constant opportunities that others have been denied.

When he came to be in power, he didn’t want to perpetuate the same network of people that held positions of authority for centuries. It was his chance to give women a break instead of hiring people who looked and talked just like him. The late great Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, “As society sees what women can do, as women see what women can do, there will be more women out there doing things, and we’ll all be better off for it.” It’s a quote that McKenna takes directly to heart and a motto that he tries to live by every single day.

McKenna’s firm is one of the most reputable in Southern California, and it’s a reputation that was earned by its accomplishments, diversity, and commitment to clients. McKenna and his partners have assembled a team of lawyers that provide clients with a unique edge.

The firm is known for caring every bit as much about the staff as about the people they represent. When COVID-19 hit, the firm quickly gained a lot of interest from applicants because the leadership team put people’s health above profits. Robert L. McKenna is proud to have been a part of a culture that evaluates people based on their merits and not based on the traditional rules of hierarchy.