The Center for WorkLife Law (WorkLife Law or WLL) is a nonprofit research and advocacy group devoted to women's advancement and to improving work/life balance for everyone--men as well as women.

WorkLife Law has a unique "six stakeholder" model that reflects our belief that many different stakeholders are ready, willing, and able to play a role in sparking social and organizational change. We work with employers, employees, plaintiffs' and management-side employment lawyers, unions, and public policymakers. Our model of social change includes cutting-edge academic research with a strategic horizon of two to five years. At any given time, we conduct a few key projects designed to take advantage of strategic opportunities to create concrete, measurable change.

This model yields results. Some highlights:

• Media coverage: Our 2006 report, "Opt Out or Pushed Out?," helped change the way influential newspapers cover the impact of motherhood on women's careers. 
  More on Opting Out of the "Opt Out" Narrative >>
• Social science: Our 2001-2003 Working Group jumpstarted the research that now documents that motherhood triggers the strongest form of gender bias in today's workplace.
• Public policy: Our research on discrimination against caregivers led to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's 2007 Guidance on Caregiver Discrimination. 
  More on EEOC Guidance: Unlawful Disparate Treatment of Workers with Caregiving Responsibilities and Joan Williams' 2007 testimony to EEOC.
  
  Our studies of the work-family conflicts faced by hourly workers have influenced public policy in both the Bush and Obama administrations. Proposed legislation prohibiting caregiver discrimination has been introduced in states across the country.
  More on Public Policy >>
• Employers: Our best-practice policies on flexible work arrangements and performance evaluations have been widely influential in the legal profession.
  More on Best Practices >>
  
  Our work on issues affecting women in STEM (science, math and engineering) has been influential in the U.S. and abroad.
  More on Women in Science and Engineering >>
• Diversity practice: Our "Diversity Beyond the Body Count" initiative mobilizes the latest in social science to give employers concrete guidance on how evaluation, work allocation, and compensation systems need to be changed in order to reverse the effects of implicit bias.
  More on Diversity Best Practices >>

WorkLife Law is housed at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. WLL's work has been made possible through generous support from the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Wallace A. Gerbode Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Women's Bar Association of D.C. Foundation, Abigail Disney, and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

Meet the WLL Advisory Board

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