March Is For The Girls

Ed. be aware: That is the newest installment in a sequence of posts on motherhood within the authorized career, in partnership with our buddies at MothersEsquire. Welcome Sarah Waidelich to our pages. Click on here should you’d prefer to donate to MothersEsquire.

March is one among my favourite instances of the 12 months — as a lifelong basketball fan and a former Division III faculty participant, there may be nothing fairly just like the insanity of this month. The sheer quantity of video games compressed into such a short while span, mixed with the unpredictable upsets and unforgettable moments, actually encapsulates the essence of the game.

This 12 months is especially particular to me, because it seems like ladies’s sports activities — and specifically, ladies’s basketball — are lastly getting the eye they’re due, because of the unimaginable 12 months and profession of Iowa’s Caitlin Clark. Clark has damaged most offensive information of be aware, and on March 3, 2024, she broke Pete Maravich’s 54-year report to turn into the all-time main scorer in NCAA basketball (males’s or ladies’s). And she or he’s not accomplished but.

As exceptional as Clark’s season and profession have been, what I’ve discovered most inspiring is what she has accomplished for ladies’s basketball as an entire. Clark is the most important story of this season for ladies’s and males’s basketball. Women and boys are clamoring for an image or autograph from Clark. The AP reported that Iowa street video games noticed a 150% increase in common attendance. More people are watching ladies’s video games than males’s video games.  The New York Times reported that girls’s sports activities would generate greater than $1 billion in income this 12 months, up about 300% from a 2021 estimate.

As we head into the NCAA Nationwide Championship tournaments, the ladies’s competitors is getting as a lot, if no more, consideration as the lads’s. Even Shaquille O’Neal is extra carefully following the ladies’s match. Contemplating all of this, it’s astonishing to recall that until 2022, the NCAA declined to advertise or make the most of its “March Insanity” trademark for the ladies’s match.

I’m a lifelong basketball fan. I used to be enjoying year-round by the point I used to be 10. It was my first real love, and I used to be lucky sufficient to proceed my profession in faculty, on the small engineering college I attended. As a younger lady, I worshiped the likes of Sue Chook and Diana Taurasi — unimaginable gamers in their very own proper.  However neither of them captured the creativeness of the nation like Caitlin Clark.

This 12 months might mark a sea change. As a result of as fabulous as Clark is, a wave of outstanding gamers is developing behind her. Junior Angel Reese led LSU to the nationwide championship over Iowa final 12 months and is poised to make one other run this 12 months. Freshman Juju Watkins on the College of Southern California is averaging more points per game than Clark did in her first 12 months. The landmark modifications with Identify, Picture, and Likeness offers supply substantial opportunities for elevated visibility and publicity for feminine athletes. There’s each motive to imagine that the eye Clark has dropped at the sport, and the expertise following in her wake, will proceed to seize the eye of the nation.

My basketball profession ended virtually 15 years in the past, and I’m now a training lawyer and a mother of two little boys. I’m full of gratitude understanding that my sons will develop up in a world the place ladies’s sports activities are lastly receiving the popularity they’ve lengthy deserved. It brings me immense happiness to assume that they are going to have exceptional athletes like Clark to admire and look as much as.

Clark’s recognition additionally offers me hope that different segments of American society, together with the authorized career, could make nice strides in reaching gender equality. Bloomberg reported in January of this 12 months that for the first time, a slim majority of legislation agency associates are ladies.  The identical report additionally discovered that girls make up 40% of all attorneys at non-public companies — one other report.

These statistics resonate deeply with my very own profession in non-public apply. A decade in the past, as I used to be beginning my profession centered on patent legislation, the sense of being the one lady within the room was palpable, and it solely appeared to accentuate as I progressed. Nonetheless, lately, we’ve  made actual strides in recruiting and retaining ladies for our IP Division, even inside this historically male-dominated discipline of patent legislation. Simply as Clark’s achievements pave the way in which for future ladies athletes, the success of extra ladies within the authorized trade continues to supply a clearer path for many who will observe.

There’s nonetheless a lot work to do to attain true gender equality, and to make sure society and our establishments worth ladies’s efforts as a lot as males’s.

However this 12 months, March is for the women.

Sarah Waidelich is a associate at Honigman LLP in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  She focuses her apply on mental property litigation, with a specific give attention to patent litigation, and is a Lateral Hiring Associate for the IP Division. Sarah is the mother of two lovely little boys, and in her free time she enjoys touring along with her husband and sons, baking, and watching sports activities. You’ll be able to contact Sarah straight at swaidelich@honigman.com.