'This is My Number'

Roberts's career remarkable. Michelle grew up in public housing in the Bronx and went on to build a reputation as a skilled trial attorney. She became the first woman to have the NBA Players Association, that's the union that represents the players when they negotiate with the NBA. She talks with Emily Basilon, a lawyer by training who chose a different path. She became a journalist and is also a lecturer at Yale Law School. We're going to pick up

the conversation with Michelle talking about her early career. When I decided to become a lawyer, I frankly decided to be a public defender. My background was such that I had grown up with people who, when they did get in trouble, could not afford good lawyers. And so best job I've ever had. I loved it. I did it for eight years. It's a very tough job to do, especially as you begin to represent people that I'm charged with more serious offenses and and the stakes become higher.

So at some point, I frankly just punked out. I couldn't take anymore. So I decided to do civil and that was the transition to two law firms UM, initially with small firms and then ultimately I went and moved on to law firms. And frankly, the only reason, and it's just true that I decided to go to big law, was I had two nieces who I promised my mom I would help to put through college. So I ended up at scanton Um doing trial work. By doing it

within the context of corporate and commercial law. I enjoyed law school. I suspect you did too, which is why you're still in that environment. But there was no way in the world I could consider having gone through that process and not engage immediately in the practice of law. And as I understand your transition UM after law school, you didn't kind of want to practice huh honey, yeah, it's even perhaps stranger than that, or I wonder if

you'll think it's strangers. So I graduated from college and worked as a journalist for four years, and I didn't see an obvious way to move into the kind of X job that I wanted. I didn't even know this word at the time, but I wanted to be like a narrative, long form magazine journalists. So when I went to law school was um a kind of act of not exactly desperation, but like a way of of restarting.

I wanted to go back to school, but also I was hoping to get a better job in journalism, which was a little bit nutty and um and not the cheapest way to arrive at that destination. But I also was opened the idea of practicing law, and so I thought when I started, like, well, see what I think about this, And what became clear to me pretty quickly was that while I was really interested in the ideas, I was not really cut out to be a lawyer.

I never wanted to stand up in a trial, right, So I think the really thrilling things about being a lawyer were kind of not a great match for my skills, and and then I got lucky and I ended up getting to do the things in journalism I was hoping

to do in my own work life. The thing that has bothered me the most has been how little I have known about the salaries of the people around me, because I've worked for private companies at which that information is not available, And so there have been moments where I've been, well, I actually care, like probably too much about fairness, and so when fairness it can be debilitating, right, you know, to me, I'm not someone who cares about making a lot of money, but when I think that

other people around me are getting paid better than I get suspicious and um ornery about it. Just about every law firm, the higher earners are men and women have to ask themselves if that's really because of the reality that they bring in more money? Um, is it really that they are more valuable than than than than female partners are because of despair already is so glaring you

can't you can't not notice it. But for me as a woman, because I like you, I mean, I'm not going to pretend I didn't care about what I was making, but I frankly never dreamed that I was going to be making the money I ultimately made, and so therefore thought I was lucky until I saw what some of my male counterparts were making, and I said, well, wait a minute, okay, now what what's what's the real differentiator here? And how did you find out? Like? How does that?

Because the partners are told, um what what each partner is making, so you you knew and you either thought, well, I'm lucky to be here, or you did what I did sometimes and said, well why is he why all those he's making more money than I am? My momb lines, I think it's probably it's uncomfortable. It creates a lot of a lot of friction, and for some people that creates a lot of self doubt and wonder about value.

But I think at the end of the day, there should be transparency about compensation so people can be satisfied or not satisfied that they're being treated fairly. What I ended up doing was deciding that I could and I didn't have the energy to worry about whether or not I was not being compensated at a level because I was a woman, or because I was black, or both.

But I ultimately decided to do was decide what I thought I was worth and to pick a number that would make me feel as if I was being valued appropriately. And I simply would say that, then when calm time came around, this is my number, And how did you arrive at that number? I'm not going to pretend I didn't take into consideration what the men around me were making.

So if there were someone in in in the in the in the litigation group whose practice was as close to mine as I could at least fathom, and if he was making X, I wanted at least X to the extent I could, I would try to find comparables um and I did find comparables in at least in terms of their practice. I insisted that I got at

least that number. Now, there would be occasions when I would say, you know, I didn't have that greater year, and so maybe I'm not necessarily going to get the same number that Joe is, but I needed to at least find out what I was comfortable with and and and no matter what Joe was getting, if you get this number, will you stay? If you don't get that number, will you will you leave? And that's kind of how I did it. I mean, I just in other words, I decided what my value was and and and then

that was the number I've lived with. How does it work in your world? Um, it's much more mysterious. Right, So what you just described there is a frankness that's bracing and perhaps useful. But then I also wonder if it leads some people down the path of like obsessing about money and comparisons all the time. Right, And you can, but you know you can, but you can stop by saying I mean, I think I think it's it's silly not to be aware of what other people are being compensated.

But you need to stop at some point and say, look that aside, do I want to stay here? And what's the number that will keep me here? And you kind of do that by not being necessarily guided by the comparables, but cognizant of the comfortables, but really just doing it some internal sort of self self evaluation of where you think you deserve to be in the compensations in scale. Well, what I like about that too is

you know, I'm sure of that. They're about the research showing that women tend to not negotiate as hard for themselves when they get new jobs, or when they're trying to negotiate raises and you're talking about finding a way to value yourself. That then you gives you the sense of entitlement. And I mean that in a positive way, to like go in and ask for it and kind of make sure you get it right. I mean, at the end of the day, I had alternatives. Not everybody

has that luxury. I don't have any children, so I had some flexibility in terms of being able to take some risks. But then, and that's kind of how I resolved it. I will tell you that in my current position, I have both men and women on my staff. Our rule is that if you want to ask for a raise or bonus, the owner is on you. Over every single year. I've been doing this for almost five years now. They some women ask all the men do. Now with

young women, that's not the way we operate. And I don't know, maybe and I don't have as many millennials working for me as perhaps you're you're accustomed to dealing with Emily, Are we getting better at this or not? That isn't being able to as women insist that we are valuable and and ask and ask four things like

raises and bonuses. I do notice a shift in how young women think about issues like sexual harassment and their sense of the way they should be treated in the workplace and actually person you know, in their personal lives. And I just don't think they put up with things that I put up with in the nineties. And I thought I was like a perfectly liberated person in the nineties. And I watched them and I feel a lot of respect and admiration for their unwillingness to tolerate like crappy behavior.

So here's the question I wanted to ask, Michelle, as you are a woman, like literally in a man's world. I mean, I know the NBA in the offices can be um, you know, there can be when women there, but like on the basketball court, that is not the case. And I'm sure you are the first woman to have your job. Just seems like that must be true. And I wonder what that was like for you coming in and how much you thought about, you know, your own

gender identity in that context. You know, it's gotten better. But the legal profession, especially the areas that I practiced in, are so male. I mean, they're not a whole lot of my words, girl, trial lawyers, and so I grew up professionally, at least working in environments where most of my my my colleagues were men, most of my competitors were men, and frankly, even when I as the public defender, most of my clients were men. So I mean, it's it's kind of been where I've been for the last

forty years. One of the funny things that that happened as I was interviewing for my current job, because it was obvious to the players that I was a girl. There were players that I asked me, well, you know, how are you going to be able to work in this in this space as the only woman. You might find yourself the only woman in a boardroom or in a conference room or at a meeting. Um, are you gonna be able to handle that? And I just started laughing. I said, dude, you know, what do you think I've

been doing for the last forty years? In my practice, there are very few girls that I work with, and so for me, it was just a natural, a sad but natural extension of of the of the professional life life that I've lived. You know, the good news is good, and I said good with quotes. The good news is there's a lot of still ignorant thinking about the competence of women, and so there are men that stupidly allow themselves to be disadvantaged by believing that I'm disadvantaged. So

that works for me. At some point you just sort of it's sad, But you get used to be the only one, don't you. Yeah, I mean I think I haven't been the only one very often in like a

work setting. I would think that I'm sure I could also get used to it, um, but I would think it would be hard to be the only woman on a regular basis, um kind of swimming in a sea of men for the reasons you said about people underestimating your intellectual ability, but also just like that, you know, could get a little like foreign or I wasn't gonna I don't know. I lonely is quite the right word.

But they're just like I don't know, there are just certain things you don't have in common with the people around you in in that environment. That's been the case since I left left the projects, right, I mean, I'm been my life and I do say sadly, I've gotten used to it. I mean I've found myself hour into a meeting and realize that I'm the only woman in the meeting or the only person I'm calling in the meeting. I mean, you just it just stops being something that

that I've become aware of. And I kind of think it's good news because at least it means I'm so consumed by what I'm doing that I'm not being distracted by what other people think is the oddity of me totally.

And the fact that you brought up the project projects makes me think about how you're dealing with this in terms of class as well as race and gender right like there, And if you let any of those things stop you, you might be come overwhelmed, like you have to figure out how to transcend all that you do because and you do by understanding that it's not your problem.

I mean, someone said a couple of days ago, I think I may have been watching TV that if you I think but poorly of me because I'm black, that is your problem. It only becomes my problem if you have some ability to do something about it. One of the first clients I had was a young African American

um who was charged with some crime. And I'm in juvenile court and there was a judge who I had been warned about that was incredibly sexist, incredibly racist, and just a nasty old son of a bee who was behaving exonsistent with everything I've been told about him, and was treating me horribly. And I was paralyzed by knowing that not merely that I was being treated badly, but that this guy was doing that to me because I

was I was black, and because I was a woman. UM. And I didn't perform because I was so stunned by what was happening to me in a public courtroom. UM. And I kind of came to when I saw the marshall taking my client back into the into the lock up, and I realized I hadn't performed, And I decided that I hadn't performed because of this judge. And I had allowed, but this judge felt about me to impact my ability to to represent this young kid, and I vowed I

would never let that happen again. You made a point earlier about you perhaps want the world to be too fair, and how do you put it? How do you take that and put it on the shelf so that you can perform, I mean, and how do you not have to do that? In ways that I think I have to do that in order to get from step A to B. My answer to that is that I have channeled my deep sense of wanting more fairness and justice

into the kinds of stories I write. So a lot of it has just been this sense that, you know, what I can do with all the luck, because I really do think of most of his luck that I've been given is like try to make try to wake people up to the problems and injustices and lack of

fairness I see around me. And so I you know, I think in the end that like so many difficult um qualities, that an obsession with fairness can be a handicap, but it can also be a real strength because it can kind of propel you forward in our complicated times. That makes that makes a lot of sense. I just I suspect that's the reason I probably as much as I love my current job, and frankly I love my

other jobs, the jobs. The job I loved the most was as a public defender, because you know, I used to say I was a civil rights lawyer when I was a public defender, because I really believe that there's nothing that promotes civil rights more than making sure that, for example, people charge with crimes or don't don't find themselves suffering because of their inability to pay. Compensation is how the workplace is supposed to tell us our value, but for women, that system is broken, so we have

to find other ways to measure our self worth. For Michelle Roberts, that meant coming up with a number that would make her feel good about her self. For many women, it means seeking out work that will fulfill us since our paychecks might not. Like Sally Crotcheck said in an earlier episode, women report that the number one reason they accept a job is meaning and purpose, and many of the women in our series have talked about that. But finding meaning in your work is a privilege, and for

many working women, we need to get paid too. Thanks for listening to our conversation series. If you like our show or have anything to add to the conversation, head on over Table Podcasts or wherever you listen to rate, review and subscribe. This show was edited by Franchick the Leavie, produced by Toper Foreheads, and hosted by me Rebecca Greenfield. Janet Paskin moderated today's conversation. We also had production help

from Jillian Goodman and Liz Smith. Francesco Levie is Bloomberg's head of Poppa