The Election of 1937 and Beyond

The 1936 New York City charter reform introduced proportional representation (PR) as the voting method for electing the city council, the legislative body that replaced the old board of aldermen. Two local women politicians gained prominence in this period. One was Genevieve B. Earle, the first woman elected to that body in 1937. She served a total of twelve years on the council and, as minority leader, worked to modernize county government to make it more economical. The other was Anna M. Kross, a city magistrate who in 1938 ran for the state supreme court, a race she lost but which inspired other women attorneys to reach for higher political goals. The repeal of PR in 1947 limited New York City women’s political futures as city legislators.

Interorganizational Determinants of Promotion: Client Leadership and the Attainment of Women Attorneys

Explanations of gender inequality typically emphasize individual characteristics, the structure of internal labor markets, or pressures from the institutional environment. Extending the structuralist and institutional perspectives, this article argues that the demographic composition of an organization's exchange partners can influence the demographic composition of the focal organization when the focal organization is dependent upon its partners. Specifically, law firms with women-led corporate clients increase the number of partners who are women attorneys. Data on elite law firms and their publicly traded clients support a bargaining power hypothesis whereby law firms promote women attorneys when their corporate clients have women in three key leadership positions: general (legal) counsel, chief executive officer, and board director. These effects are stronger when the law firm has few clients, reinforcing the hypothesis that interorganizational influence is more vital when a focal organization is dependent on its exchange partner. The results also support a related explanation based on homophily theory. The analysis rules out several alternative explanations and establishes a relationship between the presence of women-led clients and the promotion of women attorneys in law firms.