When, in 2001, the Argentine citizens’ group Poder
Ciudadano sued federal senators to force them
to abide by a long-overlooked public ethics law,
the Buenos Aires Bar’s Comisión Pro Bono went
to court on their behalf. The case set a precedent
in Latin America’s legal circles. Unlike their U.S.
counterparts, few private-sector lawyers in the
southern hemisphere had been willing to apply
their skills beyond billable hours.
But corporate lawyers and bar associations
across the Americas have thrown their support
behind a movement to develop a pro bono culture
in the region. The New York Bar’s Cyrus R. Vance
Center for International Justice, the Public Counsel
of the City of Los Angeles, the Beverly Hills Bar,
and prominent attorneys developed a coalition to
establish the means for private lawyers to work for
the public good. As Antonia Stolper, a partner in
Sherman and Stearling LLP and one of the chairs
of the Vance Center’s committee, says, “lawyers
can only serve their responsibilities as civic actors
when they act as civil society.”
The initiative resulted in the Pro Bono
Declaration for the Americas, which already counts
among its signatories some of the most prominent
private lawyers and law firms of the hemisphere.
The declaration has been effective since January
1, 2008. It defines pro bono work and creates a
framework within which members of the legal
community commit to honoring a minimum
requirement of hours each year. Despite remaining
difficulties in some firms to enforce commitments,
there are already pro bono requirements among
dozens of in-house legal firms.
Top firms like Chile’s Morales Noguera
Valdivieso & Beso, Mexico’s Von Wobeser y
Sierra and Brazil’s Siqueira Castro Advogados
are leading the way with structured programs,
and include participation in pro bono activities in
their evaluation and reward of associates. With
a new generation of lawyers embracing social
responsibility, the rise of pro bono culture in Latin
America may generate a whole new role for the
legal community on defending citizens’ access to
justice. —By Nataliya Binshteyn
of the management personnel in the financial sector,
up from 24 percent in the prior survey. In management level jobs with an accounting function, female
personnel are now 47 percent, up from 40 percent
in 2004. Women were traditionally over 50 percent
of personnel in human resources and customer service, but comparison of the first and second surveys
shows increasing gender parity in customer service
functions. Women remain under-represented in engineering and related job functions and are relatively
scarce in firms in the information systems sector. In
several sectors, including most notably pharmaceuticals and health services, CEOs have a great opportunity to promote women from the lowest management
tier—where they are close to gender parity, to the top
tier where they represent only 8 percent of presidents
and vice presidents. Our data show that women in
pharmaceuticals and related health care businesses
rise into the second tier of management but fail to
make it into the highest tier of management. In phar-maceuticals/health services firms in our 2006 survey,
women constitute 40 percent of personnel at the bottom tier of management, 36 percent at the second tier
and only 8 percent at the highest tier. This pattern is
relatively unchanged compared to the 2004 survey.
In general, our data show that, compared to smaller firms, medium and large firms in Latin America
also have an opportunity to play catch-up on the gender diversity front. Consistently across both the 2004
and 2006 data we see that women are more likely to
reach the highest level of corporate management in
firms having fewer than 200 employees.
The dichotomy between firms smaller than
1,000 employees and firms having more than 1,000
employees is striking in the most recent survey.
Below the 1,000-employee level, women occupied
38 percent of president and vice president positions
while above that line women were only 9 percent of
first tier managers.
There are several possible explanations for this
finding. First, it is similar to a pattern clearly documented in large US enterprises, where women opt
out of the corporate race to work in smaller organizations where they perceive they will have more
control of their time. Another possible contributing factor is the family firm phenomenon: while
