- Introduction
- How the Study Was Conducted
The Task Force decided to undertake two surveys in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, one of individual members of the D.C. Bar (“the Lawyer Survey”) and the other of legal employers in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area (“the Employer Survey”). To secure expert technical assistance for the project, the Task Force conducted a search for a survey consultant. The Task Force developed and disseminated a Request for Proposals, reviewed the proposals received, and interviewed the top candidates. In early 1996, the Task Force selected as the project consultant Alan R. Andreasen, Ph.D., Professor of Marketing at Georgetown University School of Business.With Dr. Andreasen's guidance, the Task Force designed and implemented the Lawyer and Employer Surveys pursuant to standard marketing research practices. The Task Force and Dr. Andreasen developed the questionnaires to be used in these surveys from several sources. They reviewed questionnaires used in similar surveys in other jurisdictions, including New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Minneapolis, as well as a draft questionnaire suggested by GAYLAW. They then designed survey questionnaires appropriate to the scope of the Task Force's charge as well as to legal workplaces in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. In accordance with Dr. Andreasen's advice and standard research procedure, a preliminary draft of the Lawyer Survey questionnaire was tested among a group of 25 lawyers. The respondents were interviewed about their experiences filling out the questionnaire, and the test led to revisions reflected in the final survey questionnaire.8
The Task Force publicized its study in the Bar's periodicals. A news article in the April/May 1996 issue of the Bar's newsletter, Bar Report, explained the goals and plans of the Task Force, identified the consultant and the Task Force members, and encouraged recipients of the survey to respond and to be candid. Shortly before the survey questionnaires were mailed, the Task Force published an announcement in the September/October 1996 issue of Washington Lawyer, the Bar's magazine. The following month, the October/November 1996 issue of Bar Report informed members that the Task Force had begun its study. In addition, the Washington Blade, a weekly newspaper of the Washington, D.C. lesbian and gay community, published an article about the study that encouraged recipients of the surveys to respond.
In addition to the survey questionnaires, the Task Force and Dr. Andreasen developed instruction sheets and cover letters. The cover letters, signed by the D.C. Bar President and President-Elect, described the purpose of the study and encouraged participation. The instruction sheets assured the recipients that responses would be anonymous and confidential, and stated a deadline for the return of the questionnaires.9 Dr. Andreasen established a Post Office box to which the responses were to be mailed, and a business reply envelope was included with each questionnaire.
Dr. Andreasen advised the Task Force regarding optimal strategies and standard practices for encouraging a high rate of response. In accordance with that advice, the Task Force decided to send two copies of the questionnaire to each recipient, with a two-week interval between the mailings. The second copy served as a reminder to the recipient to complete the questionnaire and provided a replacement copy in case the first mailing had been misplaced. A prominent banner identified the second copy of the questionnaire as such, and recipients were specifically asked to disregard the second questionnaire if they had already responded to the first. This procedure was followed for both the Lawyer Survey and the Employer Survey.
The Task Force anticipated that the random sampling procedure for the Lawyer Survey might not yield enough responses from gay and lesbian lawyers to permit significant comparisons with heterosexual lawyers. Therefore, in accordance with the consultant's advice and standard survey techniques, the Task Force supplemented the random sample with a “purposive” sample directed to lesbian and gay lawyers. Throughout the consultant's Report on the survey of individual lawyers, the responses from this “purposive” sample are presented separately from those of the gay and lesbian respondents in the random sample, although in a few instances the responses of the two groups, after having been shown separately, are combined.10
The specific methodologies used for the Lawyer Survey and the Employer Survey are more fully described in the consultant's Reports on each survey, which are annexed as Appendices A and B of this Report.11 As therein described, the procedures followed were carefully designed to assure the anonymity of the respondents.
Having begun the survey process, the Task Force presented a “Roundtable on Gays and Lesbians in the Legal Workplace” on February 25, 1997, at the D.C. Bar Winter Convention. Attended by an estimated 60 to 70 Bar members, the Roundtable consisted of a panel discussion followed by questions and comments from the attendees. Those in attendance addressed problems confronting gay and lesbian lawyers in the workplace, as well as steps employers can take to help eliminate discrimination.12
Dr. Andreasen compiled the survey results and presented the first data to the Task Force in February 1997. The Task Force then requested from Dr. Andreasen further data and analysis, as well as conclusions, for his two Reports. These tasks were completed, with input from the Task Force, in December 1997.13 Thereafter, the Task Force met on a number of occasions to discuss the survey results, and then prepared the present Report, which sets out the Task Force's findings and recommendations on the basis of the two surveys and the consultant's Reports thereon.
- The questionnaires used in the two Surveys are reproduced in Appendices A-1 and B-1.
- These additional components of the mailings are reproduced in Appendices A-2, A-3, B-2, and B-3.
- To develop the “purposive” sample, a member of the Task Force who is active in the gay and lesbian community arranged to have a separate set of 331 questionnaires distributed to D.C. Bar members whom she knew or believed to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual. For this purpose, the Task Force member used contacts at law firms and several gay and gay-friendly organizations, including GAYLAW, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, the Potomac Executive Network, and the Whitman-Walker Clinic Legal Services Department (an AIDS services organization). The fact that the purposive sample was developed, in part, from gay and lesbian lawyers likely to be “out” in their workplaces and willing to be identified as gay or lesbian may account for some of the differences between that sample and the random sample of lesbian and gay lawyers. For example, 84.9% of the purposive sample, but only 50.5% of the gays and lesbians in the random sample, consider themselves to be openly gay or lesbian. (Lawyer Survey, Table 9.) Recipients of the “purposive” survey were specifically instructed that if they had also received the random survey, they should respond only to the latter. The cover letter from the Co-Chairs of the Task Force that was sent with the “purposive” mailing is reproduced in Appendix A-4.
- See App. A at 2-7; App. B at 1-5.
- The transcript of the Roundtable is available upon request from the D.C. Bar.
- As noted above, Dr. Andreasen's Reports are annexed hereto as Appendix A (Report on Lawyer Survey) and Appendix B (Report on Employer Survey).
