Linda Bray Chanow

Biography

Linda is the Executive Director of the Center for Women in Law and a Specialist at The University of Texas School of Law. In these roles, Linda convenes leaders and top academics at the Center’s biennial Women’s Power Summit on Law and Leadership. She teaches a class at Texas Law that explores the gap between the number of women law school graduates and the number of women who occupy leadership positions through the lens of leadership theory. She implements the Women in Law Institute, a training program for female law students and judicial clerks that provides them with critical skills to successfully navigate their careers. Linda also facilitates the Consortium for Advancing Women Lawyers, which brings together the heads of women lawyer organizations and thought leaders from across the country to share knowledge, develop synergies, and double efforts to advance women in the profession.

Linda has a prominent voice in the national discourse on women lawyers. Linda recently co-chaired the American Bar Association (ABA) Toolkit for Gender Equity in Partner Compensation, an initiative of the ABA Presidential Task Force on Gender Equity, and is a liaison to the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession. She advises the State Bar of Texas Women in the Profession Committee, other Texas women lawyer organizations, and women’s initiatives at law firms in Texas and throughout the country. She has authored or co-authored numerous reports on women in the legal profession and has written prominent op-eds in The Texas Lawyer. While under her leadership, the Center has been quoted or featured in U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Post, Dallas Morning News, The American Lawyer, Texas Lawyer, ABA Journal, The Texas Lawbook, Law360, HBR Blog Network, Forbes, ForbesWoman, Postcards (Fortune).

Linda is a member of the 2013 Class of Leadership Texas. She received 2013 Advancement of Women Award by the Travis County Women Lawyers’ Association and the Travis County Women Lawyers’ Foundation. Prior to joining the Center for Women in Law, Linda served as the Assistant Director of the Project for Attorney Retention, an initiative of the Center for WorkLife Law of the University of California Hastings College of the Law. She was a Member of the Board of Directors of the Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia and a co-chair of its Initiative on Advancement and Retention of Women. Linda began her legal career as a commercial litigator at WilmerHale in Washington, D.C. Linda graduated from American University’s Washington College of Law with honors in 1999. While in law school, Linda focused on employment law and worked with Distinguished Professor of Law Joan C. Williams on the development of Professor Williams’ book, UnBending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What to Do About It.