Law Commons^™

Gaps In Our National Security: How The Lack Of Female Leadership Impacts Our Nation’S Success And Safety, Maggie Sullivan

Cleveland State Law Review

Gender inequality in the workplace is an ever-evolving discussion. One aspect of gender inequality that is frequently overlooked is the leadership gap—the lack of representation of women in the top positions of their respective careers. Research demonstrates that the leadership gap is particularly pronounced in the legal field. This Article analyzes the factors within the legal field that perpetuate the leadership gap and examines the unique, confounding qualities of careers in national security to illustrate an exacerbated problem of inequality for women lawyers in national security. The lack of adequate diversity in people working in—and leading—the national-security field has been …

Foreword Introduction To Symposium: Enhancing Anti-Discrimination Laws In Education And Employment, Susan D. Carle

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

When this Symposium was first conceived in the Summer of 2021, the nation was just emerging from the first phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. This was the beginning of trying to go back to life as normal. Given this reawakening, the Symposium’s planning committee felt the urgency of a need to regroup, rethink, and reassess the state of employment antidiscrimination law. We were not sure where others would be on this possible project, given the newness of the hopeful end to lockdowns and social isolation and return to “normal” concerns. But we quickly found that those who joined the Symposium …

Trauma-Informed (As A Matter Of) Course, Natalie Netzel

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

Law students are impacted by trauma and law professors are in a position to help by adopting a trauma-informed approach as a matter of universal precaution. The 2021 Survey of Law Student Well-Being (“SLSWB”) revealed that over twenty percent of responding law students meet criteria that indicate they should be evaluated for post-traumatic stress disorder (“PTSD”). The study also revealed that almost fifty percent of responding students reported an important motivation for attending law school was experiencing a trauma or injustice. Put differently, law schools are full of law students who have experienced trauma, many of whom are actively struggling …

Menstrual Dignity And The Bar Exam, Margaret E. Johnson, Marcy L. Karin, Elizabeth Cooper

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the issue of menstruation and the administration of the bar exam. Although such problems are not new, over the summer and fall of 2020, test takers and commentators took to social media to critique state board of law examiners’ (“BOLE”) policies regarding menstruation. These problems persist. Menstruators worry that if they unexpectedly bleed during the exam, they may not have access to appropriately sized and constructed menstrual products or may be prohibited from accessing the bathroom. Personal products that are permitted often must be carried in a clear, plastic bag. Some express privacy concerns that the see-through …

Is The Legal Profession Too Independent?, Limor Zer-Gutman, Eli Wald

Marquette Law Review

Faced with mounting pressure to permit national law practice and increase

access to legal services for those who cannot afford to pay for them and

critiques about growing inequality and its failure to lead the battles for greater

gender and racial justice, the legal profession’s response has been to resist

reform proposals by invoking its independence. Lawyers and lawyers alone,

asserts the profession, ought to determine the pace and details of nationalizing

law practice, set the conditions under which nonlawyers and artificial

intelligence can offer legal services, and respond to growing inequality among

lawyers and concerns about the role lawyers …

Gender And Specialization In The Practice Of Divorce Law, Richard J. Maiman, Lynn Mather, Craig A. Mcewen

Maine Law Review

In the past two decades, the gender composition of the legal profession in the United States has changed dramatically. While women comprised less than five percent of the nation's lawyers in 1970, the proportion of women lawyers had increased to more than 19% by the end of 1988, and roughly 40% of new lawyers each year are now women. However, the movement of women into the legal profession has not been easy. As a consequence, considerable commentary has been focused on the significant problems of sexual harassment, discrimination, and other forms of gender bias, and on such issues as the …

Gender And Specialization In The Practice Of Divorce Law, Richard J. Maiman, Lynn Mather, Craig A. Mcewen

Maine Law Review

In the past two decades, the gender composition of the legal profession in the United States has changed dramatically. While women comprised less than five percent of the nation's lawyers in 1970, the proportion of women lawyers had increased to more than 19% by the end of 1988, and roughly 40% of new lawyers each year are now women. However, the movement of women into the legal profession has not been easy. As a consequence, considerable commentary has been focused on the significant problems of sexual harassment, discrimination, and other forms of gender bias, and on such issues as the …

Sociolegal Research, The Law School Survey Of Student Engagement, And Studying Diversity In Judicial Clerkships, Shih-Chun Steven Chien, Ajay K. Mehrotra, Xiangnong Wang

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) is an extraordinary asset for examining a vast array of topics related to the educational experiences of law students. By focusing on student-oriented surveys, LSSSE provides law schools and researchers an invaluable opportunity to delve into a wide range of issues dealing with the law student experience, including the career preferences and expectations of students throughout their law school years. In particular, there remains a wealth of opportunity for scholars interested in using LSSSE data to explore issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion in legal education and the profession.

The American Bar …

Why Are Seemingly Satisfied Female Lawyers Running For The Exits? Resolving The Paradox Using National Data, Joni Hersch, Erin E. Meyers

Joni Hersch

Despite the fact that women are leaving the practice of law at alarmingly high rates, most previous research finds no evidence of gender differences in job satisfaction among lawyers. This Article uses nationally representative data from the 2015 National Survey of College Graduates to examine gender differences in lawyers’ job satisfaction, and finds that any apparent similarity of job satisfaction between genders likely arises from dissatisfied female JDs sorting out of the legal profession at higher rates than their male counterparts, leaving behind the most satisfied women. This Article also provides a detailed examination of the specific working conditions that …

Building Bridges Across Curricular And Status Lines: Gender Inequity Throughout The Legal Academy, Kristen K. Tiscione, Melissa H. Weresh

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Gender Inequity Throughout The Legal Academy: A Quick Look At The (Surprisingly Limited) Data, Kristen K. Tiscione

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The long-standing overrepresentation of female law faculty in skills teaching and service-oriented positions is well documented. In contrast, the historical underrepresentation of female law faculty in top dean and tenured or tenure-track teaching positions has been widely recognized but difficult to quantify. The American Bar Association has a link in the statistics archives of its website to a chart from Fall 2013 on the gender, ethnicity, and status of law faculty. The Association of American Law Schools (AALS) links to the same chart on its website. This chart replaced a similar chart covering 2008 to 2009 that the ABA has …

Why Are Seemingly Satisfied Female Lawyers Running For The Exits? Resolving The Paradox Using National Data, Joni Hersch, Erin E. Meyers

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Despite the fact that women are leaving the practice of law at alarmingly high rates, most previous research finds no evidence of gender differences in job satisfaction among lawyers. This Article uses nationally representative data from the 2015 National Survey of College Graduates to examine gender differences in lawyers’ job satisfaction, and finds that any apparent similarity of job satisfaction between genders likely arises from dissatisfied female JDs sorting out of the legal profession at higher rates than their male counterparts, leaving behind the most satisfied women. This Article also provides a detailed examination of the specific working conditions that …

Breaking The Silence: Holding Texas Lawyers Accountable For Sexual Harassment, Savannah Files

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Following the 2017 exposure of Harvey Weinstein, the #MeToo movement spread rapidly across social media platforms calling for increased awareness of the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault and demanding change. The widespread use of the hashtag brought attention to the issue and successfully facilitated a much-needed discussion in today’s society. However, this is not the first incident prompting a demand for change.

Efforts to bring awareness and exact change in regards to sexual harassment in the legal profession date back to the 1990s. This demonstrates that the legal profession is not immune from these issues. In fact, at least …

Women In The Legal Profession From The 1920s To The 1970s: What Can We Learn From Their Experience About Law And Social Change?, Cynthia Grant Bowman

Maine Law Review

I work in a law school building that is named for Jane M.G. Foster, who donated the money for its construction. It’s a lovely building, and my office overlooks a gorge so that I can hear the water fall as I write. So I’m grateful to Jane Foster. And curious. Who was she? Jane Foster graduated from Cornell Law School in 1918, having served as an editor of the law review and being elected to the Order of the Coif. But no law firm wanted her services. She obtained employment not as a lawyer but as a legal assistant in …

On Being A Second: Grace Wambolt, Legal Professionalism And 'Inter-Wave' Feminism In Nova Scotia, Elizabeth Legge

Dalhousie Law Journal

Grace Wambolt was the fifth female graduate of Dalhousie Law School and the second woman to practise law in Nova Scotia. She was one of the relatively few female lawyers in Canada (up to the influx of the nineteen-seventies) who practiced law following the push by the first female lawyers for the elimination of formal barriers to practice. This paper examines the similarities and differences between the "firsts" and those who followed them, primarily by looking at the life of Wambolt and her letters and speeches preserved in the Wambolt fonds located in the Nova Scotia Archives and donated by …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Deborah Johnson's Post: Implicit Bias And The Law: 04/12/2016, Deborah Johnson

Law School Blogs

Also available @ http://law.rwu.edu/blog/implicit-bias-and-law

Trending @ Rwu Law: Deborah Johnson's Post: Diversity And "Defamation", Deborah Johnson

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

The First Women Lawyers: "Piecemeal Progress And Circumscribed Success", Mary Jane Mossman

Mary Jane Mossman

This paper explores the context in which women gained admission to the bar at the end of the nineteenth century, discusses the stories of some of the first women lawyers in different parts of the world, and reflects on their challenges and choices as members of the legal professions.

The Role Of Political And Social Movements On Women’S Entry Into The Legal Profession In Maryland (1902-1918), Jane C. Murphy

All Faculty Scholarship

The rise of women in the legal profession in Maryland was shaped by a wide range of factors, including national, state, and local political and social movements. As one scholar has noted, "[W] omen's lives are complex and .. . region, period, personality, and circumstance crucially influence what a subject is able to make of herself."' In this chapter, I explore how those circumstances-- personal and political-influenced the first group of eight women admitted to the Maryland Bar between 1902 and 1920. These women-Etta Maddox, Anna Grace Kennedy, Emilie Doetsch, Marie Elizabeth Kirk Coles, Mary Virginia Meushaw, Helen F. Hill, …

Gender Diversity In The Patent Bar, Saurabh Vishnubhakat

Faculty Scholarship

This article describes the state of gender diversity across technology and geography within the U.S. patent bar. The findings rely on a new gender-matched dataset, the first public dataset of its kind, not only of all attorneys and agents registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office, but also of attorneys and agents on patents granted by the USPTO. To enable follow-on research, the article describes all data and methodology and offers suggestions for refinement. This study is timely in view of renewed interest about the participation of women in the U.S. innovation ecosystem, notably the provision …

Women Of Color In Law Teaching: Shared Identities, Different Experiences, Katherine Vaughns

Katherine L. Vaughns

No abstract provided.

Portia's Deal, Karen M. Tani

All Faculty Scholarship

The New Deal, one of the greatest expansions of government in U.S. history, was a “lawyers’ deal”: it relied heavily on lawyers’ skills and reflected lawyers’ values. Was it exclusively a “male lawyers’ deal”? This Essay argues that the New Deal offered important opportunities to women lawyers at a time when they were just beginning to graduate from law school in significant numbers. Agencies associated with social welfare policy, a traditionally “maternalist” enterprise, seem to have been particularly hospitable. Through these agencies, women lawyers helped to administer, interpret, and create the law of a new era.

Using government records and …

Women And The Law: Touro Law Center Symposium

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

The First Women Lawyers: "Piecemeal Progress And Circumscribed Success", Mary Jane Mossman

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This paper explores the context in which women gained admission to the bar at the end of the nineteenth century, discusses the stories of some of the first women lawyers in different parts of the world, and reflects on their challenges and choices as members of the legal professions.

The Social Significance Of The World's First Women Lawyers, Fiona M. Kay

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Subtly Sexist Language, Pat K. Chew, Lauren K. Kelley-Chew

Articles

Sometimes, sexist language is blatant and universally shunned. Other times, it is more subtle and even socially acceptable. For instance, as summarized in this article, substantial social science research has considered the use of male-gendered generics (the use of such words as he, man, chairman, or mankind to represent both women and men) rather than gender-neutral alternatives (such as she or he, human, chairperson, or humankind). This research concludes that male-gendered generics are exclusionary of women and tend to reinforce gender stereotypes. Yet, these words may not be recognized as discriminatory because their use is perceived as normative and therefore …

Welcome And Opening Remarks Work/Life Conflict In The Legal Profession, Jamie Amir, Sarah Lechner, Stuart L. Deutsch, Tanya Kateri Hernandez

Faculty Scholarship

At a symposium sponsored by the Women’s Rights Law Reporter, Professor Tanya Hernandez introduces the keynote speaker, Professor Joan Williams, a law professor at the American Law School, Washington College of Law in Washington,D.C. where she teaches Property, Women's Legal History, Feminist Jurist Prudence, and a Jurist Prudence seminar. The topic of the symposium is Work/Life Conflict in the Legal Profession.

Gender Bias And The Legal Profession: A Discussion Of Why There Are Still So Few Women On The Bench, Leah V. Durant

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Gender Bias: Continuing Challenges And Opportunities, Rebecca Korzec

All Faculty Scholarship

In 1873 the U.S. Supreme Court denied Myra Bradwell the right to practice law, holding "the paramount destiny and mission of women are to fulfill the noble and benign office of wife and mother." Now, just slightly more a century later, two women sit on the Supreme Court, and almost half of all law students and law school faculty are women.

Women Of Color In Law Teaching: Shared Identities, Different Experiences, Katherine L. Vaughns

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.