Women Lawyers Research Articles

Black Women in White Institutional Spaces: The Invisible Labor Clause and The Inclusion Tax

The dual pandemics brought on by COVID-19 and racial violence has played a significant role in uncovering how systemic racism is deeply entrenched within white spaces in America. This article examines the experiences of Black women lawyers in elite law firms to demonstrate how white institutional spaces are racially organized with embedded colorblind racist practices that work to obscure the insidious perpetuation of white supremacy. Black women are required to perform added, unrecognized, and uncompensated labor to maintain their positions. This invisible labor manifests in the form of an inclusion tax that they must pay to be included in white spaces. This article discusses how being one of very few Black people in white spaces creates a myriad of issues that require significant invisible labor including navigating white narratives of affirmative action, negotiating how dominant white culture functions to normalize the white experience, and adherence to white normative standards.

Racial and gender disparities in the portrayal of lawyers and physicians on television

Mass media’s portrayal of minorities and women in society has the potential to shape perception and affect behavior. Our objective was to examine minority and gender representation in professional roles as lawyers and physicians on television. We hypothesized that minorities and women are less likely to be represented in these roles on television compared to White men. In addition, we hypothesized that the lower fictional representations of minorities and women as professionals would be mirrored by lower rates of minorities and women in actual legal and medical practice. We analyzed medical and legal primetime dramas featuring lawyers and physicians to determine the race and gender of the lead character(s). The distribution of fictional minority and female professionals was compared to a racial distribution obtained from the 2020 US census, as well as data on the race and gender of lawyers and physicians in practice. Our findings showed fictional lawyers and physicians on television were predominantly White and male. The next most common groups represented were Black lawyers and physicians. There were no major Hispanic or Asian lawyers and only one Hispanic and Asian male physician represented. Women were underrepresented as both lawyers and physicians. When compared to the expected population demographic data from the 2020 census, both racial and gender disparity were noted, with significantly fewer than expected fictional representations of minority and female lawyers and physicians. The racial and gender disparity found with fictional lawyers and physicians mirrored lower numbers of minority and female lawyers and physicians in actual practice.

Women Lawyers for Social Causes: Professional Careers and Legal Development in Thailand

Women lawyers are increasing seen among the leading legal defenders of human rights and social movements in Thailand. Increasing visibility is partly a result of news coverage and social media, but women lawyers activism has far older roots. In this article, we examine two related processes of change that contribute to women’s emergence as leading social cause practitioners. First, we discuss the relationship between Thailand’s legal system and its social and political development since the end of the nineteenth century. Second, we employ career narratives of three women lawyers with innovative practices for social causes as a lens through which to examine how lawyers transform available resources into an identity, law practice, and law. We discuss not only the role of prior generations of women lawyers, connections between influential elites and social cause lawyers, and the founding of a few key organizations within the NGO community, but also the role of the women as architects of their own careers. We conclude that they have become successful by aligning their practices with emerging social movements and progressive bureaucrats, unexpectedly creating professional identities with somewhat different relationships to the rule of law.

“I haven't come a long way, and I'm not a baby”: Task assignment and diversity of the Supreme Court bar

AbstractObjectiveGender disparities in litigation task assignment are not limited to the trial court context; they are present in even the highest of courts in the United States. We explore and seek to explain the gendered patterns of participation by lawyers arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court.MethodsAfter quantitatively describing participation by female attorneys in Supreme Court litigation, we use logistic regression and fractional logit, respectively, to identify factors that influence the degree to which women deliver oral arguments and participate in writing litigant briefs.ResultsDescriptively, we find that male attorneys present more oral arguments than female attorneys, and most litigant briefs are written by male‐dominated teams. In fact, more than a third of the briefs are only signed by men. In multivariate analyses of Supreme Court oral arguments and briefs, we find that women are more likely to argue and sign briefs on issues in which they are stereotypically perceived as more competent (women's issues) and less likely to participate in issue areas where they are perceived to be less competent, like economic issues. Similarly, women are less likely to orally argue in complex cases.ConclusionWhile occupational segregation and other factors may play a role, the participation of female attorneys in this forum is likely driven, in part, by stereotyped assessments of their competency.

Gender Discrimination and Sexual Harassment in the Legal Profession: A Perspective from Patriarchal Society

The aim of this study is to ask female lawyers about gender discrimination and sexual harassment in Pakistan, a conservative and patriarchal society. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among women lawyers working in the five largest bar associations in the province of Punjab, Pakistan (including: Multan, Bahawalpur, Lahore, Faisalabad, and Rawalpindi). Women lawyers stated that gender discrimination and sexual harassment are prevalent. Most female lawyers experienced discouragement, disrespect, and gender discrimination by their colleagues, clients, and police officials. Female lawyers also experienced sexual harassment from male colleagues and litigants in their workplace.

Enactors or reactors? Work-life border management for women in law in Nigeria

ABSTRACT Work-family border theory casts individuals as protagonists who are enactive rather than reactive in shaping borders between work and personal life domains. To what extent is this the case in strongly patriarchal contexts that constrain women’s personal agency? This qualitative study conducted with 32 female lawyers, magistrates and justices in Nigeria shows how participants engage in new border management tactics in response to context-specific institutional and social factors. Faced with public harassment and physical assault in a country where violence against women is normalised, female legal professionals restructure family borders to extend no further than their homes and retain police attachés as border-keepers. When their families are reconfigured via nonconsensual polygamous marriages, women’s work borders are strengthened by co-wives performing domestic labour and family borders are strengthened by co-wives’ assistance with job tasks, thereby reducing participants’ work-family conflict. Rather than strategically enacting work-life borders within known situational constraints, Nigerian female legal professionals react to involuntary events that limit their agency to negotiate desired work and personal lives.

Opportunity and change in occupational assortative mating

This article documents how opportunity and change in the U.S. occupational structure shaped patterns of occupational assortative mating between 1970 and 2015–2017. Trends in occupational assortative mating have often been cited as potentially contributing to the rise in economic inequality—the idea that doctors increasingly marry doctors instead of nurses—thereby exacerbating the concentration of resources among advantaged households. Previous estimates of trends in occupational assortative mating are now decades old and their impact on household inequality has not been quantified. Our results show large-scale change. The prevalence of dual-professional couples nearly tripled between 1970 and 2015–2017. Changes were especially large among particular occupational combinations. For instance, male doctors have become increasingly likely to be married to female doctors, and male lawyers to female lawyers. Almost all of the changes in occupational assortative mating patterns, however, are accounted for by changes in the distributions of spouses' occupations, for example, the rise of women in professional occupations. Because of this, the contribution of occupational assortative mating to the rise in economic inequality has been small. In the absence of any association between spouses’ occupations, observed increases in household earnings inequality would have been reduced by 5%. Although this is a small portion of overall changes in inequality, it is much larger than prior estimates of the effects of educational assortative mating on inequality, which recent studies have estimated to be essentially zero.

The grey zone: the implications of the ageing legal profession in Australia

ABSTRACT Lawyers in many jurisdictions are ageing, and yet there is little information concerning the age profile of the legal profession. This paper presents the first consideration of the age profile of lawyers outside of the US, showing that Australian lawyers are ageing and delaying retirement. These findings have serious implications. Problems associated with a growing proportion of older lawyers include an increasing risk of lawyers suffering from age-related cognitive and physical impairment, and the related rise of complaints and malpractice claims against older lawyers. It is also clear that the Australian legal profession is unprepared to address these problems. The legal profession has ignored important gender-specific implications of ageing, such as female lawyers experiencing menopause and the lower savings of female lawyers moving into retirement. Regulatory regimes have not considered the impact of the profession's ageing profile, and there is no mandatory reporting of lawyers suffering from age-related impairment or provisions should a lawyer die. The profession also has not provided strategies to positively transition lawyers into retirement, and there is a lack of flexible working arrangements and succession planning, especially in firms located outside urban centres.

Courting women in the Gulf monarchies: State power, gender and judging

The article highlights the appointment of women as adjudicators in court in the Gulf monarchies between 2005–2020. The main question addressed is: What are the driving forces behind the inclusion of women in the judiciary in these overtly conservative societies? Two circumstances are explored: First, the rise in the number of female lawyers along with the appointment of professional women in law as deputy public prosecutors. This question responds to how Gulf women have entered positions of judicial litigation and decision-making. Secondly, the inclusion of women as adjudicators in court. This part addresses questions related to why Gulf women have obtained positions as prosecutors and judges in courts. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia provide case studies in addition to a general review of women’s access to judgeship in the six Gulf monarchies.

Fitzpatrick and the Feminine Law

This short commentary on the legacy and significance of Peter Fitzpatrick’s scholarship tells of the divergent approaches he and I take in relation to the “feminine” in the writings of French poet, playwright, fictional author, and theorist, Hélène Cixous. Peter, on his side, is ever reminding us of the constituent connection between law and its origin and the impossibility of the “feminine law” escaping a scheme fixated on a specific patriarchal content. I, on my side, am optimistically yearning for a Cixousian “feminine” who eludes a return to the origin and who fearlessly transgresses the law(s) of the patriarchal. Herein, I theorize the essential difference between Fitzpatrick’s “feminine law” and my reading of the law of the Cixousian “feminine” as relating back to our (differing?) approaches to creativity and originality. To my mind, on the question of law’s creativity, Peter aligns less with Cixous and more with Jacques Derrida, who many have accused of positing a negative conception of creation. Applied to Peter, while ever endeavoring to situate law in relation to creative undertakings, such as literature and poetry, following his determinate/responsiveness model, the persistence of the negative is inescapable and the “feminine” is always already integral to law.

Diversity and Inclusion in the American Legal Profession: Discrimination and Bias Reported by Lawyers with Disabilities and Lawyers Who Identify as LGBTQ.

This article is part of an ongoing body of investigation examining the experiences of lawyers with diverse and multiple minority identities, with particular focus on lawyers with disabilities; lawyers who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer ("LGBTQ+" as an overarching term); and lawyers with minority identities associated with race and ethnicity, gender, and age. The focus of this article is on discrimination and bias in their workplaces as reported by the lawyers experiencing it. We employ survey data from the first phase of this investigation, gathered from the survey responses of 3590 lawyers located across all states in the United States and working in most types and sizes of legal venues. The data were collected between 2018 and 2019, before the 2020 pandemic. We estimate differences across three categories of discrimination reported-subtle-only discrimination, overt-only discrimination, and both subtle and overt discrimination. We estimate the nature and magnitude of associations among individual and organizational variables, and we use multinomial logistic regression to illustrate relative risks of reports of discrimination for intersecting identities. As compared to non-disabled lawyers, lawyers with disabilities show a higher likelihood of reporting both subtle and overt discrimination versus no discrimination. Similarly, lawyers who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer ("LGBQ") show a higher likelihood of reporting both subtle and overtdiscrimination, and subtle-only discrimination, as compared to lawyers who identify as straight/heterosexual. Women lawyers and lawyers of color are more likely to report all three types of discrimination. In general, younger lawyers are more likely to report subtle-only discrimination when compared to older lawyers. Lawyers working at a private firm are less likely to report all types of discrimination, while working for a larger organization is associated with a higher relative risk of reporting subtle-only discrimination versus no discrimination. The current study represents a next, incremental step for better understanding non-monochromatic and intersectional aspects of individual identity in the legal profession. The findings illustrate that primary individual and multiple minority identities, as identified by disability, sexual orientation, gender, race/ethnicity, and age, are associated with reports of discrimination and bias in the legal workplace.

What Brings Female Professionals to Entrepreneurship? Exploring the Antecedents of Women’s Professional Entrepreneurship

This study explores how female professionals engage in starting their own businesses, known as professional entrepreneurship. In particular, this study specifies what factors foster the likelihood of self-employment of female professionals. Drawing upon the push and pull theories of entrepreneurship, we argue that individual capabilities (as a pull factor) make the self-employment of female professionals less likely, while discrimination experiences (as a push factor) make the self-employment of female professionals more likely. Given such bifurcated effects of these factors, we examine the combinatory effects of individual capabilities and discrimination experiences (which are specified as attribute-based and family-based discrimination experiences) on the rate of self-employment of female professionals. With a sample of 1356 female lawyers in the U.S., we test our hypotheses predicting the rate of self-employment with respect to prior salary and discrimination experiences. Our results reveal that prior salary (a pull factor) motivates female lawyers to stay at the traditional law firms, whereas attribute-based discrimination experiences (a push factor) motivate them to open their own office. Furthermore, we find that such a push effect is pronounced only among the female lawyers with lower salaries. Then, the empirical findings are discussed to elaborate the process of female professionals’ entrepreneurship.

Exploring female lawyers’ competence in Ghanaian law firms: clients’ perspective

ABSTRACT This paper aims to explore how clients perceive the competence of female lawyers in Ghanaian law firms. As an exploratory qualitative study, thematic analytic approach was used to analyse the interview data gathered from 15 clients of law firms. The findings reveal that clients consider the gender of lawyers when making hiring decisions and determining competence. The findings also suggest that clients consider legal expertise, professionalism, knowledgeability, gender attributes, and social interaction as critical determinants of female lawyers’ competence in law firms. We suggest that managers of law firms should understand and consider the role of clients in competence development. Managers of law firms could also manage gender-based competence biases of clients and improve practice management by implementing effective gender policies and client–lawyer relationship management strategies. The wider implication for the gender schema theory is that gender schemas of clients affect competency measurement and assessment. The current competence-based theorizations in management science could consider client perspective.

The challenges to gender equality in the legal profession in South Africa: A case for substantive equality as a means for achieving gender transformation

SUMMARY South Africa lags behind with regard to an effective framework supporting substantive equality in the legal profession. The structure of the legal profession and the number of women represented in the legal profession do not as yet reflect the diversity of South African society. A number of factors play a role in the skewed representation of female attorneys and advocates in the legal profession. In addition, formal equality cannot translate into gender transformation, as the issues that cause such inequalities extend beyond the scope of attaining sameness. International instruments suggest that special measures be adopted to achieve substantive equality specifically with regard to the role of women in the workplace. This article analyses the current composition of the legal profession from the perspective of gender and race, while promoting the concept of substantive equality as a preferred approach to gender transformation in the legal profession. It considers the theoretical framework for gender equality as a human right in South Africa by examining relevant legislation and international and regional instruments, and analysing the extent to which the Cape Bar maternity policy, as an existing transformation initiative, implemented on the basis of a gender stereotype, encourages substantive gender transformation in the legal profession. Key words: gender equality; human rights; legal profession; substantive equality; formal equality; gender transformation; gender stereotypes

Personal Freedom in Estonian Marriage Law between 1918 and 1940

Although Estonia started to develop its own legal system after gaining independence in 1918, many of the old laws from the Russian Empire remained in force in the interim. Soon, Estonia started to develop its own civil code. The old Baltic Private Law Code was highly patriarchal, and various aspects of family law reform were extensively discussed throughout the 1920s and 1930s. While the need for reform was widely accepted, opinions as to its extent varied considerably: female lawyers, inspired by Scandinavian laws, fought for the greatest possible degree of freedom and equality between spouses, while conservative politicians preferred more moderate changes. The article examines two main questions connected with the developments of those times – how much freedom the state gave to spouses for regulating their personal and proprietary relations and how much personal freedom the wife had in comparison to the husband. The norms regulating personal relations, the statutory matrimonial property regime, and the contract related to marital property are analysed in connection with efforts to identify the merits and reasonable limits of personal freedom in marriage. The family law in force in the 1920s and 1930s is compared with draft forms of the Estonian Civil Code, for uncovering how the compilers of the new version achieved balance between modern liberal ideas of personal freedom and traditional concerns about upholding stability of marriage.

La feminización de la profesión jurídica en Santa Rosa: aproximación preliminar desde la perspectiva de género

The present work is part of the research project “Legal professions: impact of gender relations, family roles and care in the strategies of professional integration of lawyers in Santa Rosa”, whose purpose is to make an approximation of the positions that the women lawyers of Santa Rosa (La Pampa) occupy, in the professional work areas of the legal field, and observe how gender and family roles and care responsibilities affect their professional career. It will reflect on the relationship between the training of legal operators in higher education (HE), their professional practices and the re/production of gender stereotypes, since there is still a general collective imaginary that preserves the traditional model of femininity, by which differentiated conceptions of the characteristics and capacities of women and men are imposed on subjectivities. This imaginary acts in the lives of women inside and outside the universities in the form of discrimination, and the subjectivities constructed under these gender differential patterns are what ultimately shape the professional practice of law. The legal profession is conquered by stereotypes and differential gender relations that harm women, and despite the fact that the field of legal university study has been feminized, as well as public and private professional practice, there are still inequalities in the ways in which the legal profession is exercised by men and women. Therefore, it becomes necessary to make a critical theoretical reflection of the process of labor insertion of women lawyers and the relationship between profession, gender, family relations and care of the city of Santa Rosa, this work responding to the dual purpose of evidencing, while promoting the denaturation of gender segregation and inequalities against women.

Moving from Legislation to Implementation: Participants’ Resolve on Inheritance Property of Women

This paper attempts to develop a mechanism to overcome inequality present in the context of inheritance property of women in Pakistan. Taking a feminist research stand that focused on knowledge construction as a way to suggest alternatives for changes in oppressive situations. Data collected from thirty men, women of rural, urban settings, and ten male and female lawyers from the Pothohar region through self-exploratory semi-structured qualitative interviews. The findings revealed procedural changes at the state level such as the offices where property transfer happened as well as recommended to set up a monitoring cell to see the record of the court decisions about inheritance property of women. Moreover, the findings highlighted community-level changes to spread awareness through various means like media, social media, Friday sermons, and seminars at union council levels about the inheritance property of women. Furthermore, findings also indicated changes at the family level as a combination of state decisions to make a change in the family headship, changing mindset through awareness as well as the training of boys and girls on equal footing at home.

The Case for Feminist Legal History

Abstract While we may be witnessing a highpoint of interest in the lives of early women lawyers, and women’s legal history generally, feminist legal history remains largely undeveloped in the UK. Drawing on examples of women’s representation in and engagement with law and law reform in the UK and Ireland, this article delineates the method, scope and purpose of feminist legal history. It begins by exploring the place of women in traditional accounts of legal history, before going on to consider the methodological and substantive goals of feminist legal history. We argue that feminist legal history is a political project, requiring its authors to commit not only to uncovering untold stories, but also to challenging and revising dominant historical narratives. We conclude with a call for scholars to take up the insights and methods of feminist legal history as a means of acknowledging and celebrating the agency of those involved in past and ongoing struggles for justice and equality.

Corporate lawyers in the USA: pathway to gender parity?

PurposeThe current study aims to analyze the connection between gender disparities and employment in senior legal roles within large American firms. Specifically, this study seeks to uncover whether legal positions in large corporations reproduce inequalities in representation and wages, or whether these roles provide women with a pathway to greater gender parity.Design/methodology/approachInvestigating a large data set of over 2,000 USA public companies over a ten-year period, this study examines the representation of women in senior legal roles, the likelihood of women’s appointment to those roles as a function of the gender composition of the industry and if a wage gap exists between men and women serving in the top legal roles in corporate America.FindingsFindings suggest that rather than moving women closer to gender parity, in-house counsel positions reproduce many of the same inequalities found in large law firms, particularly with regard to representation in senior ranks and compensation.Originality/valueResearch has illustrated that women experience disadvantage in terms of representation, wages and advancement in large law firms and in corporate executive suites. Women lawyers who occupy senior executive roles, however, may benefit relative to their non-legal counterparts given their education and expertise. Their credentials and relative status may contribute in reducing or eliminating gender disparities. This study extends current research by investigating this potential path to greater gender equality.

Diversity and Inclusion in the American Legal Profession: Workplace Accommodations for Lawyers with Disabilities and Lawyers Who Identify as LGBTQ.

Purpose: Workplace accommodations, vital for employees with disabilities, promote diversity and inclusion efforts in organizations. This article examines who requests accommodations and who is more likely to have requests granted. We investigate the roles of individual characteristics and their intersection, including disability, sexual orientation, gender, race/ethnicity, and age. Methods: Using data from a national survey of U.S. lawyers, we estimate the odds of requesting accommodations and having the requests approved. We also estimate differences in odds according to individual characteristics, adjusting for control variables. Results: Personal identity factors, such as disability status, gender, and age, predict requests for accommodations. Odds of requesting accommodations were higher for women and people with disabilities as compared to men and those without disabilities, but lower for older individuals. Odds of requesting accommodations were higher for an older population segment—older lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) lawyers—than for younger lawyers. Accommodations were granted differentially to individuals with multiple marginalized identities. Counter to predictions, being a person with a disability is negatively associated with having an accommodation granted. Older lawyers generally have higher odds of having accommodations granted, but odds for groups such as women and racial/ethnic minorities decline with age. LGBQ lawyers who are racial minorities have lower odds than White LGBQ lawyers of having their accommodations granted. Longer tenure increases the odds of requesting accommodations. Working for a private organization decreases the odds; working for a large organization generally increases the odds. Conclusions: Those most needing accommodations, such as lawyers with disabilities and women, are more likely to request accommodations. Disabled lawyers, older women lawyers, older racial/ethnic minority lawyers, and LGBQ minority lawyers have relatively low odds of having requests granted. The results highlight the need to consider intersectional identities in the accommodation process.