NCDD - By the Numbers

A fellow female NCDD member who is also a great friend of mine gets propositioned at every NCDD function despite the fact that she is married and not the least bit interested. It’s become a running joke now. She definitely has her own views on the culture of NCDD.

Women make up slightly more than 10% of the NCDD membership. That number would be significantly larger if NCDD made ANY effort whatsoever to recruit women members.

Most women don’t want to join all male organizations. Men may think this is an attractive proposition for us. Truth is, it’s not.

There are a LOT of female DUI defense lawyers around the country that are not NCDD members. That seems to be a very difficult concept for the Male Monarchy to grasp. They think we are a rare breed.

I ran some stats on the number of female DUI lawyers who have been asked to present at Winter or Summer Session over the course of the 8 years I have been a member. A grand total of 149 men presented during that time period compared to 5 women.

The 5 number is misleading, however. 2 of the women were experts like Sunwolf – not DUI lawyers. That leaves 3 but there were only actually 2 women – 1 spoke twice. That leaves a GRAND TOTAL of 2 women DUI lawyers on the NCDD stage in 8 years. I am in charge of the speakers for a DWI seminar in Texas in May. 1/2 of the speakers are female DWI warriors. Somehow I can find them in North Texas but NCDD can’t find them in the entire U.S.

Contrast these numbers to the ratio of speakers that present at seminars for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. All of their seminars for 2012 are on their website. You can go pull up the faculty list for each one. You will find about a 50/50 split. These are women presenting on topics like DNA, capital murder, sex crimes, jury selection, etc.

NACDL recognizes the contributions of women lawyers. So does every other legal organization I belong to with the exception of NCDD.

After returning from Winter Session a few weeks back where the entire speaker lineup was male, I posted a question on the NCDD list serve - Where Are the Women? I was told today that there will be 3 women presenting this year at Summer Session. Amazing. A decade goes by and none are deemed worthy but they catch a little heat and suddenly can find 3. I will be in attendance to witness this amazing event.