Wendi Lazar has devoted her practice to representing employees and professionals, many of which have been subjected to discrimination and pay inequity in the workplace.
Recently, Wendi collaborated with Stephanie A. Scharf, founding partner of Scharf Banks Marmor LLC in Chicago (one of the nation’s largest women-owned law firms representing corporate clients) and Michele Coleman Mayes, general counsel for the New York Public Library and chairwoman of the American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession, on an in-depth article describing the regular and systematic pay inequity that women lawyers experience within large law firms and often in midsize firms as well.
“Building Momentum for the Pay Equity Movement in BigLaw,” published by Law360, shows how age-old biases and widely accepted business protocols institutionalize pay gaps that start small but widen as women advance through their careers in large law firms. The article also describes the internal and external forces that are helping to solve the problem.
Outten & Golden is proud to have Wendi within its leadership ranks and of her contributions as a champion of diversity within the legal profession. Wendi serves as a commissioner with the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women, chair of the Commission’s Sexual Harassment and Gender Based Bullying Committee, and Diversity Co-Chair and a member of the Executive Committee of the New York State Bar Association Labor & Employment Section. She and other powerful voices on the ABA’s Commission on Women waged a successful campaign that lead to an August 2016 change to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct that makes it an ethical violation for attorneys to harass or discriminate in the course of their practices.
