Do Women JDs Receive Equal Compensation?

I ran into this article about women's salaries, JDs v. MBAs--who has a better chance of earning the same salary as their male counterparts?   According to the article, it's female JDs.  Well, with those of us that are blessed enough to land a Big Law job, I'm sure that is true.  There's no justification for paying a first year female differently than a male.

Also, women holding professional degrees (J.D.s, M.B.A.s and M.D.s) fare even worse -- over the course of their careers, they will earn $2 million less than the men in their graduating class, says Lang. "How's that for a graduation gift?"


But what about shit law?

When I was a shit law associate, I was painfully aware that the men in my office were making more than I was.  There was a guy named Ken who was married and roughly my equal as an associate.  BUT, I was more experienced than he was and I was often helping him with his cases.  He graduated a year after me, but was a bit older because he was a non-traditional law student.  He carried a lesser caseload. I was definitely the workhorse at the firm.  He was married, but his wife earned tons more money than he did.  After a couple of years, I found out that he was making $75K when I was making $60K.  I also found out that his bonus was larger than mine was.   In fact, I received less of a bonus than all of the associates.  But when I received that disgraceful bonus, and subsequently found another job, my boss almost cried.  For the next 4 years, he would call me up from time to time and ask me if I'd like to come back.  I wanted to ask him why he didn't pay me fairly.

Since I know that I was valued, but not compensated thus, I imagined a million and one reasons why I was paid the least and worked the most.  The hierarchy in my office was as follows:  (1) married men, (2) single men, (3) married women and (4) me, a single woman.  Maybe the married men were paid more because they had to support a family, even though their wives worked.  And the married women did not work as hard as I did because they could always fall back on their husbands.  One of the married chicks, Belinda, would just say no to my boss when he asked her to work weekends or stay late.  "My husband is waiting for me," and she'd walk out of the office.  But I had no one to lean on (not even a boyfriend at the time), so I had no leverage.  There were a couple of times that my boss would push the envelope so much that I couldn't breathe, and I would have a break down and quit, saying that my father would support me and I don't have to deal with his bullshit.  But in the end, my boss probably knew that my blue collar father could not help me that much.

When I went to the next firm, it was the same dynamic.  Even the only female partner earned less than the male partners--although she was the most well known attorney at the firm.  She too was single.  And the firm had a rotating door for female associates.  They couldn't hold onto them for longer than a year.  I really think that the main partner, a man, was much harder on the women associates.

In the end, is it still a good old boy's club?