My old buddy and fellow curmudgeon, Mark Herrmann, has a knack for predicting the future of Biglaw, which comes as no surprise since his position as in-house counsel at Aon allows him to see the “industry” view from the front line. Last year, he predicted that the sexual harassment trend would hit law firms, and he was right. But this year?

2019 will be the year of the woman in the law.  I predicted last year that we’d see more allegations of sex harassment in law firms.  I think that’s come to pass.  Partners at law firms have now been fired after having been accused of impropriety.  Law students have convinced major firms to change their policies about arbitrating employment disputes.

That was a beginning.  In 2019, we’ll see a middle:  Clients will increasingly insist that women participate on trial teams, get origination credit for work, and otherwise progress in law firms.  Firms will be embarrassed by pay equity studies that reveal how women are undercompensated.  The pressures from within and without will make the legal profession bend, and women will see real progress in 2019.

The clients of big law firms are corporations, and corporations don’t consume legal talent anything like individuals. If a person needs a lawyer, he wants the best lawyer he can afford (or is willing to pay for, as the case may be). Corporations see lawyers as fungible, just another cog in their wheel of doing business. They may go with a star like David Boies for “bet the farm” litigations, but the vast majority of their work is pedestrian and, frankly, doesn’t require any great legal chops. And Biglaw is great at quantity over quality, at great expense.

But corporations are far more concerned with the optics as part of their anti-marketing campaign than they are with the quality of the lawyers representing them. It’s not that they don’t want to win or have their legal work competently performed, but it’s largely work that any modestly qualified lawyer can perform competently, and a high quality lawyer could produce at half the price and still be wildly profitable. What they do not want is to become the target of the mob for being the dreaded “boys club” by having no women representing them.

This becomes an issue when their legal work is outsourced, since they aren’t doing the hiring and firing, and must therefore tell their outside counsel that they want their legal work done by a team with the correct demographics for the sake of appearances. Even if we were to assume that a corporation cares deeply about eliminating racism and sexism in the law, more so than, say, profits and share price, they would still need to push their counsel to staff their work with people who would otherwise be cast for a Beneton commercial.

This raises three needs that Mark predicts will catch on in the coming year.

1. Women on trial teams
2. Women getting origination credit
3. Women making partner

The question raised by these three facially laudable goals is whether it’s doable by evolution or revolution. Let’s start with the obvious: there are and have been great female lawyers. Are there enough of them to fill the demand? They are now the majority of law school grads, but that doesn’t answer the question. There remain issues surrounding their decision to remain in the practice of law long enough to grow their chops into good lawyers, then great lawyers, no less great trial lawyers.

But there are the unspoken questions: will they leave the practice to have children? Will they return or choose to raise their children? Will they return, but with limits, whether part-time or flex-time. While these questions are taken as unfair, since biology happens and women are entitled to make their own choices, it doesn’t change the fact that they’re not putting in the hours of other lawyers, both male and female.

Can you try a case on flex-time? When that memo needs to be done for the morning, does junior’s third-grade play take precedence? When you’re staffing a case, do you put your client at risk to create the appearance of equity? And will the corporation be as good with losing as it is with demanding an optically appropriate trial team?

Then there’s the money question. If women are bringing in clients and cases, but not getting origination credit for making rain, it’s ordinary sex discrimination. It’s unlawful. It’s bad business. But if they’re not getting origination credit because they’re not rainmakers, then what? Do you pretend they are? Do you take clients brought in by one person and credit them to another to make appearances? Somebody gets burned if it’s not for real, and much as firms want women to bring in huge, profitable corporate clients, and reward them for doing so, what happens when they don’t?

But the partner question gets even stickier. If women are being denied partnership because the “little lady” doesn’t fit in at the meetings, then the firm is again engaging in common sex discrimination, again unlawful and foolish practice. Good lawyers are good lawyers. Rainmakers are rainmakers. And if you’ve got women who fit the bill, you would have to be a blithering idiot not to do everything possible to keep them, as they not only serve the clients and firm, but fill the need for optics. There’s nothing wrong with serving multiple useful purposes.

If the universe of senior associates from which partners are drawn offers meager choices, however, then what? When the new class of partners is named at some Biglaw firm, because that’s how they do things at Biglaw, the absence of women is invariably noted. It doesn’t answer the question of why, but merely gender counting. Should they all be women, there’s a party. If there aren’t enough, condemnation will rain down upon them. If you’re a corporation represented by a firm that fails to meet its quota, you’re tainted by your choice of counsel.

As Herrmann has a knack for predicting these things, I tend to think he’s right. What about the lawyers who put in the time to hone their craft, who pull the all-nighters to finish that memo, who bring in MegaCorp’s business, make their annual hours and do the work that serves the client’s needs? These lawyers can be men. They can be women. But they are lawyers. Will that be good enough anymore? Will their efforts and sacrifices be appreciated or only their genitalia? Mark Herrmann doesn’t say.