Epstein Responds to Menkel-Meadow's Review Essay on "Women in Law": [Comment

Abstract

I appreciate the serious attention Carrie Menkel-Meadow gave my book Women in Law' in the review essay published in 1983 American Bar Foundation Research Journal 189, but I object to certain implications in her review. Although authors often take exception to a reviewer's interpretation of their work, it is another matter to be accused of dishonesty by innuendo in a review. On page 189 Professor Menkel-Meadow writes, the most part, I think Epstein is honest. Since she doesn't specify where she thinks I have been dishonest, I find this objectionable and irresponsible. Since it is clear that she is referring to my methodology, her argument lodges in the fact that I interviewed only 179 attorneys over a 15-year period in two separate studies. A closer look at the methodological appendix would have revealed to Menkel-Meadow that the first study I conducted of attorneys was indeed of a random sample in the New York area, not only in New York City but also in adjacent areas and included people who worked in small practices and in small towns as well as those who worked in large firms. For my second study I interviewed people who constituted role clusters and networks in various types of legal employment. Such a snowball sample is considered to be a legitimate mode of selection in sociological circles. I also clearly stated in my methodological appendix that although I interviewed 179 attorneys at length in focused interviews, I also interviewed additional scores of lawyers and law students in informal settings not only in New York but elsewhere in the United States. Since Menkel-Meadow takes issue with my findings, particularly about law faculties, it should be noted that I interviewed law faculty in Connecticut, California, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., as well as in New York.