女性在男权世界获取权力的新方式

培养新客户的风险更大，部分原因是它需要耗费同样多的时间和精力，但这些付出是不计费的，除非一位新客户愿意签约。所以说，如果一位初级合伙人竭尽全力构造和培育一个强大的外部网络，他（她）“在短期内的工作效率和盈利能力很可能面临下降风险。”
Even so, for women, rainmaking is often the only option, for reasons that are familiar by now. Most senior partners, and their clients, are still white males who, left to their own devices, usually take other white males under their wing and groom them as successors.

即便如此，出于众所周知的理由，培养新客户往往是女性唯一的选择。大多数高级合伙人和他们的客户依然是白人男性。如果让这些人自主行事，他们往往会庇护其他白人男性，并将其培养成自己的接班人。
"It's not a conscious decision based on discrimination," Briscoe says. Rather, he says, it's a question of what sociologists call homophily, or "a matter of people's 'comfort zones,' where we tend to gravitate toward people who are more like us, or who remind us of our younger selves."

“这并非一种故意歧视女性的决定，”布里斯科说。相反，这是一个被社会学家称为同质性的问题，“事关人们的‘舒适区’(comfort zone)”，他说。这种理论认为，我们往往会被更像自己的人吸引，或是让你想起年轻时的自己的人。
Luckily for women, homophily's effects operate outside their firms as well as inside. "There are many more women now who are in-house counsel at big companies, or who are in other roles where they're choosing professional services firms for their companies," Briscoe notes, and that often works in female rainmakers' favor.

幸运的是，对于女性来说，同质性效应不单出现在公司内部，公司外部也一样。布里斯科指出，“现在有越来越多的女性担任大公司的内部顾问，或者为公司选择专业服务机构之责的其他角色。”这种情况通常对致力于培养新客户的女性有利。
For firms that want to shake things up and change, for example, how clients get passed down through the ranks, Briscoe has two suggestions. First, he says, "big partnerships don't always look at how clients are inherited. So taking a close look at exactly how those decisions are made would be a good first step."

布里斯科给那些试图革新（比如，改变客户资源沿公司等级阶梯的分配方式）的公司提供了两个建议。首先，他说，“大型合伙制公司并非总是关注客户资源如何被继承。所以，仔细观察公司如何做出这些决定，将是一个良好的开端。”
Second, he says, firms might want to support the rainmaking path to senior partnership by allowing more time for networking outside the office. That may well mean recognizing that fewer billable hours now can mean higher revenues, and more women senior partners, down the road.

第二，他说，公司可能会允许初级合伙人花费更多时间建立外部网络，以支持培养新客户这条通向高级合伙人的路径。这可能意味着承认，现在更少的计费时间意味着未来能够获得更高的收入，更多的女性高级合伙人。