The Philadelphia Bulletin reported that Elena Kagan, Dean of Harvard Law School recently expressed her view that women don’t enter law school for the same reasons that men do: “Many women think of a law degree as a way to do good for others, and are far less likely to think of law in terms of private interests,” Ms. Kagan said.

Debra Cassens Weiss, writing for The American Bar Association Journal reminded me that Kagan’s remark expanded last week on comments she had originally made in 2006 in an address to the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.  At that time, Kagan refererred to a 2006 study by the Center for Work-Life Policy finding that only 20 percent of highly qualified female lawyers said having “a powerful position” was an important career goal.

Kagan thinks that it is not that women eschew power; rather that they feel that being “powerful” is inconsistent with a goal many have – to leave the world a better place than they found it.

Do women feel that way? Do you feel that way?

If so, I’d offer this – you can do more good when you have power than when you don’t. With power (and don’t forget that money often accompanies power), you can help more people than you can without it.

You can do well and do good too.

TAGS: Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Elena Kagan, Harvard Law School, power, The American Bar Association