A Look At Life In Lockdown And Beyond For Women In Tax

Tax Notes reporters Amanda Athanasiou and Lauren Loricchio share what they learned reporting on their recent piece, “How the Pandemic Upended Life and Work for Women in Tax,” and their personal experiences.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. 

David D. Stewart: Welcome to the podcast. I’m David Stewart, editor in chief of Tax Notes Today International. This week: work, life, lockdown.

Tax attorneys are usually pretty adept at managing challenging schedules and competing demands. But for many women in the tax profession, the coronavirus pandemic has been an unparalleled test of those attributes. Many mothers and caregivers were forced to juggle remote work with child and family care, all without the usual help from outside family members, schools, and other professional services.

Tax Notes reporters Amanda Athanasiou and Lauren Loricchio spoke with several women in the tax field about life in lockdown and their hopes and expectations for work-life balance post pandemic.

Amanda, Lauren, welcome back to the podcast.

Amanda Athanasiou: Thanks, Dave, for having us. It’s good to be here.

Lauren Loricchio: Thanks.

David D. Stewart: Now, you recently spoke with more than a dozen women in the tax profession about how the pandemic upended their lives, especially for mothers and caregivers. Can you tell us a bit about some of the common themes or stories you heard?

Lauren Loricchio: Sure. We spoke with a pretty diverse group of women in the tax law profession. Some were younger and some were older. Some women had children and some didn’t.

The thing that we heard is that everyone was struggling, whether it was with the isolation of being at home or the political events unfolding over the death of George Floyd and concerns about racial justice in the country. A lot of people have also been feeling really anxious about COVID-19 and worried about their friends and family.

The women that we spoke with who seemed to have the most difficulty juggling work and life were those with caregiving responsibilities, whether it was for a child or a family member. The lack of day care and kids being out of school seemed to really make things difficult for some women.

David D. Stewart: These interviews became part of a story recently published in Tax Notes called “How the Pandemic Upended Life and Work for Women in Tax.” Where did this project come from?

Amanda Athanasiou: The pandemic hit at a time when there seemed to be some real movement on gender diversity in the legal industry. More and more attention and resources are being dedicated to the underrepresentation of women and racial minorities and the upper ranks of the profession.

By some measures, there has been a lot of progress recently, including the narrowing of gender pay gaps. Firms are sort of more open to flexible working arrangements, and that kind of thing.

With all the press about how the pandemic came on and was hitting women in the workforce pretty hard, there were comparisons to the 2008 crisis and reports of women leaving the workforce altogether. We were naturally curious about what was happening in tax law.

When women leave the profession, would they be set back in terms of gender and diversity progress? Would the reasons for that be traceable again to gender roles? Are firms or attorneys facing financial difficulty That’s what prompted us down this road.

David D. Stewart: I’m curious to hear about the story behind the story here. Like everyone else, here at Tax Notes we’ve been working remotely for the last 18 months. Did that affect how you were reporting a story on the lockdown and its effects?

Lauren Loricchio: Well, in terms of collaborating on our reporting, it didn’t really have an impact because Amanda is on the West Coast and I’m on the East Coast. We would have had to work remotely anyway to work on this together.

But I can say that for me personally, the pandemic started right after I returned from maternity leave. I could really sympathize with a lot of the women I spoke with who had kids, who were struggling with the day care issue, and were trying to work from home with young children or kids in school. It’s definitely been a challenging time for me. I know it has been for a lot of working women.

Amanda Athanasiou: I was actually more curious about what Lauren would say because I’ve been working remotely for seven years. I’ve always felt like the organization is really well equipped for remote work. In one sense, it was pretty seamless to embark on this project with Lauren because of the remote setup that I already had in place.

But as she mentioned, having kids at home did raise challenges that we worked through. I’m not sure if the reporting would have been any different had the office been open because of the distance. Also, the infrastructure was set up within the organization already. Hopefully that helps with the transition to remote work for Tax Analysts overall. I’d say it was positive experience.

David D. Stewart: Was there anything that you found surprising that you learned along the way during your reporting on this story?

Lauren Loricchio: I don’t think there was anything surprising to me. It was just interesting for me to hear the different perspectives on how people were dealing with their situations.

Amanda Athanasiou: As Lauren mentioned in the beginning, we had a wide cross section of voices in the story. I was a bit surprised by how similar and relatable everybody’s story ended up being. Not just talking about how difficult it was to parent and work as a big law attorney at the same time, but how the women were able to take it in stride in a difficult time and just treated things very matter-of-factly.

Another pleasant surprise was that the industry stayed really busy. I think there have been reports, and also our sources anecdotally reported that their groups were really busy. That occurred in a lot of practice groups under the tax umbrella. So, even if their group slowed down a little bit in March or April, things tended to pick back up again.

I didn’t hear any reports that “my practice area slowed down and it never picked back up.” I’m not saying that didn’t happen, but the fact that it didn’t come up in this cross section was interesting and pleasantly surprising for the industry.

David D. Stewart: Were there any stories from the people you spoke with that stood out?

Amanda Athanasiou: For me, the reports from attorneys of color in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder stood out to me a lot. They talked about aspects of practice that I hadn’t heard from other attorneys.

Some of their comments revolved around Zoom and how there were pluses and minuses to Zoom. Clearly it’s undeniable that there are some details in communications that are more evident when you’re face to face with somebody and that can be helpful. But, as we reported in the story, some attorneys of color found Zoom to amplify the fact that they tended to be the only people of color in meetings, both internally and also with clients. That was especially highlighted after the George Floyd murder.

Lauren Loricchio: I spoke with one woman who didn’t want to reveal her identity in the article. She was the only woman that we spoke with who actually left her job because of some of the difficulties that she was experiencing with her family and her kids, juggling everything. She said she had been thinking about leaving her job, but this was the tipping point for her. That was kind of an unusual thing.

She said that she really didn’t hear of a lot of people leaving their jobs in tax law because of the pandemic. It sounds like a lot of people felt like their firms supported them and accommodated them throughout the entire thing. But she was the one unique person that we ran across in our reporting who did end up leaving.

David D. Stewart: Well, that actually leads me into another question I had, which relates back to a story that Amanda wrote back in late 2019 about women leaving the tax field. This takes place right before the pandemic. Can you tell us a bit about what you learned through your reporting on that story and whether the pandemic has exacerbated some of the typical challenges women in tax are faced?

Amanda Athanasiou: Sure. That story tried to capture the current explanations for why women still make up such a stubbornly small percentage of tax attorneys and higher ranks.

A lot of those reasons have been pretty well documented. They include things like mommy track stereotypes, some entrenched policies or habits that might not seem discriminatory on their face, but often are in practice. Fewer women in higher ranks often means fewer role models for young associates to look at and see how paths have been taken to make a long-term career in big law work.

Some of these things have led to more difficulty originating work by some measures. You have studies on pay gaps and that kind of thing.

That story also meant to highlight some good ideas for how the paradigm might shift. Some more recent stories and discussions have shown that there has been a lot of progress on this front.

The pay gap was actually narrowing by some measures right before the pandemic began. The fear that the pandemic could walk back some of that progress was high on everyone’s minds as the pandemic hit.

So far, the answer to the question seems to be no, women don’t seem to be leaving tax law and math. They don’t perceive that they’ve been set back by this experience, overwhelmed though they feel. Many of the people we spoke with were not worried about it, but in some ways the timing of this story makes it a bit of a cliffhanger.

I think there is a lot of optimism right now that the various pluses that came out of the pandemic — understanding that remote work can work, that you can work with your kids in the house, that the sky doesn’t fall — will help women in the long run. There’s hope that firms will embrace these flexible schedules and that they’ll become more commonplace.

But it remains to be seen how that will play out in the next six months or a year. Some have suggested that things can get back to normal pretty quickly. Those alternative work arrangements like taking long breaks for kids and making up time at night might just as quickly go back to being sort of a unusual situation.

David D. Stewart: Did you draw any conclusions, any lessons to be learned during your reporting or from your own personal experience of things that employers might have done better to support women working from home during this period?

Lauren Loricchio: From what I gathered from the people that I spoke with, it sounded like the law firms were pretty accommodating with the women. A lot of the attorneys that I spoke with said, “Our male colleagues were dealing with the same issues like working from home with children.” That might’ve made things a little bit better.

Some women said, “My practice is run by women with children and they understand the difficulties that I’m facing.” I think from the reporting that I did, it sounded like women working in law firms had a lot of support from their employers. More so than maybe women who work in lower wage jobs where they don’t have the ability to work from home.

David D. Stewart: That leads me to the big question out there for today. With vaccination rates rising and employers looking to reopen offices, where do things stand for these women? Will their work lives look like they did 18 months ago?

Lauren Loricchio: It sounds like a lot of people are hopeful that their law firms will be more flexible and accommodating and that remote work will become more prevalent. It sounds like things might be easier for women moving forward.

Amanda Athanasiou: I would agree. There is a lot of optimism that firms will seize on the capabilities that they used during the pandemic and keep those flexible schedules running and keep options available, not requiring as much in office time. There’s a lot of optimism.

But some have also voiced concerns that things could get back to normal within six months or a year. Some of the sources voice that it is a little premature to know how things are going to work out over the next six months or a year. 

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

David D. Stewart: All right. Well, Lauren, Amanda, thank you for being here.

Lauren Loricchio: Thanks for having us.

Amanda Athanasiou: Thank you for having us.