Law and Gender Commons^™

Diversity, Deliberations, And Judicial Opinion Writing., Susan B. Haire, Laura P. Moyer, Shawn Treier

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Underlying scholarly interest in diversity is the premise that a representative body contributes to robust decision-making processes. Using an innovative measure of opinion content, we examine this premise by analyzing deliberative outputs in the US courts of appeals (1997-2002). While the presence of a single female or minority did not affect the attention to issues in the majority opinion, panels composed of a majority of women or minorities produced opinions with significantly more points of law compared to panels with three Caucasian males.

Justice Florence Kerins Murray: The Legacy Of A Pioneer In The Rhode Island Courts, Marian M. Desrosiers Ph.D.

Journal of Interdisciplinary Feminist Thought

This essay discusses the professional and personal life of Florence Kerins Murray (1916-2004), a senator and judge, whose career had a profound effect onRhode Islandgovernment, public service, and the judiciary. The author uses twenty oral history interviews conducted by the author from 2007-12 with men and women working in the courts, in state and local governments, in public service organizations, and in the media. The research was funded by a scholar grant from the Rhode Island Council on the Humanities.

Gender And Difference Among Brazilian Lawyers And Judges: Public And Private Practice In The Global Periphery, Maria Da Gloria Bonelli

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article examines the ways in which Brazilian lawyers and judges experience difference. It focuses on how gender and diversity intersect in identity formation among women and men in public and private practice in the state of Sdo Paulo, Brazil. In attempting not to attach one fixed meaning to the concept of difference, the research works with Avtar Brah's typology, which aids in detecting how difference is perceived and experienced by the interviewees. The results provide a look at the specificities of professional practice in the global periphery, comparing the gender composition of law firms and gender stratification within legal …

Women Of Color In The Judiciary: An American Dream, Charles Z. Smith

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Not So Far Away: Visiting With Women Judges In China, Ann Marshall Young

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Women Ruling The Bench: Steps To Achieving Gender Parity On State Courts, Cheyenne L. Horien

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Across the United States, each state practices one of several methods of selecting judges to their courts. Many of these processes have not changed for decades and some argue this results in minorities, both gender and racial, receiving fewer spots on the bench. I focus explicitly on the gender aspect of judicial selection: Why are there fewer women judges in some states than in others? Previous literature on this topic is mixed. I analyzed data gathered from the American Judicature Society and other sources. Among the five methods (appointment, combination, merit selection, non-partisan election, partisan election), because of the many …

Justice Stevens And The Emerging Law Of Sex Discrimination , John P. Wagner

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

State Interests And The Duration Of Abortion Rights, Randy Beck

McGeorge Law Review

No abstract provided.

Minding The Court: Enhancing The Decision-Making Process, Pamela Casey, Kevin Burke, Steve Leben

Faculty Works

A compelling and growing body of research from the fields of cognitive psychology and neuroscience provides important insights about how we process information and make decisions. This research has great potential significance for judges, who spend much of their time making decisions of great importance to others. For most judges, this research literature is not part of their judicial education. This article reviews cutting edge research about decision making and discusses its implications for helping judges and those who work with them produce fair processes and just outcomes. It builds on a 2007 American Judges Association paper that encouraged judges …

Women And Judging: A Feminist Approach To Judging And The Issue Of Customary Law (Eleventh Annual Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lecture), Susan H. Williams

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Mocking Equality: Reproduction Of Gender Hierarchy In Collegiate Mock Trial, Lily M. Foss

Scripps Senior Theses

During the information sessions that the Scripps Mock Trial Team hosts at the beginning of the school year for those interested in mock trial, it's customary for all the returning team members to talk about why we decided to join mock trial in college. We had no team at my high school, but at the end of my senior year, my AP American Government teacher decided that having a mock trial in class would give us valuable insight into the American legal system. I was chosen to give the closing statement for the defense, and I found my calling. My …

From The People's Court To American Idol: The Relationship Between Reality Television And Arbitration, On-Air And Off, Jared Bloch

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

The first section discusses the background of the role of alternative dispute resolution ("ADR") in television, starting with the courtroom dramas that helped bring ADR to mainstream culture. Next, the Note will explore the regulations that helped to shape the television industry, in conjunction with a discussion of why the impact of these regulations is still being felt today. Then, the Note will discuss the effect that guilds, such as the Screen Actors Guild ("SAG") and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists ("AFTRA"), have on arbitration provisions and contracts as a whole, as well as a bigger picture analysis …

Judicial Innovation And Sexual Harassment Doctrine In The U.S. Court Of Appeals., Laura P. Moyer, Holley Takersley

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The determination that sexual harassment constituted “discrimination based on sex” under Title VII was first made by the lower federal courts, not Congress. Drawing from the literature on policy diffusion, this article examines the adoption of hostile work environment standards across the U.S. Courts of Appeals in the absence of controlling Supreme Court precedent. The results bolster recent findings about the influence of female judges on their male colleagues and suggest that in addition to siding with female plaintiffs, female judges also helped to shape legal rules that promoted gender equality in the workplace.

When Will Black Women Lawyers Slay The Two-Headed Dragon: Racism And Gender Bias, Wilma Williams Pinder

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Women In Robes, Sital Kalantry

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article presents statistics on the number of women in the judiciary and argues for gender parity to further equality, enhance courts' legitimacy, and strengthen the rule of law.

Chief Justice Christine M. Durham: Trailblazer, Pioneer, Exemplar, André Douglas Pond Cummings

Law Faculty Scholarship

In 1978, Christine M. Durham was appointed, in a historic moment, to serve as trial judge to the third judicial district court in the state of Utah by then Governor Scott Matheson. Lost in the appropriate fanfare connected to her groundbreaking appointment as the first woman to serve as a general jurisdiction judge in the state of Utah, was the fact that she would also become the youngest person ever appointed to a judicial post in that great state. Just four years later, this young thirty-something female judge would be elevated by Matheson to sit on the Supreme Court of …

From The Bench To The Screen: The Woman Judge In Film, Laura Krugman Ray

Cleveland State Law Review

Although there has been a dramatic increase in the number of women judges over the past half century, their cinematic counterparts have failed to reflect that change. This Article explores the paradoxical relationship between social reality and its representation on screen to identify a lingering resistance to the idea of women exercising judicial power. The Article first examines the sparse history of women judges as central characters in films of the 1930s, finding the tension in those films between judicial authority and domestic happiness. It then turns to Hollywood’s romantic comedies of the 1940s, which resolved that tension through the …

Sex On The Bench: Do Women Judges Matter To The Legitimacy Of International Courts?, Nienke Grossman

All Faculty Scholarship

This article seeks to advance our understanding of international courts' legitimacy and its relationship to who sits on the bench. It asks whether we should care that few women sit on international court benches. After providing statistics on women's participation on eleven of the world's most important courts and tribunals, the article argues that under-representation of one sex affects normative legitimacy because it endangers impartiality and introduces bias when men and women approach judging differently. Even if men and women do not think differently, a sex un-representative bench harms sociological legitimacy for constituencies who believe they do nonetheless. For groups …

Do Female “Firsts” Still Matter?: Why They Do For Women Of Color, Amber Shanahan-Fricke, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that diversifying the federal judiciary with more women and men of color, but particularly with more women of color, is essential to moving forward and strengthening this country’s democracy. Specifically, this Article responds to arguments by prominent feminists that having female “firsts” on the bench is not as critical as having the “right” women on the bench—“right” meaning those women who are invested in and supportive of what are traditionally viewed as women’s issues. In so responding, this Article acknowledges the appeal of such arguments regarding judicial service from the “right” women, but contends that, while achieving …

Judging Women, Mitu Gulati, Stephen J. Choi, Mirya Holman, Eric A. Posner

Faculty Scholarship

Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s assertion that female judges might be “better” than male judges has generated accusations of sexism and potential bias. An equally controversial claim is that male judges are better than female judges because the latter have benefited from affirmative action. These claims are susceptible to empirical analysis. Primarily using a dataset of all the state high court judges in 1998-2000, we estimate three measures of judicial output: opinion production, outside state citations, and co-partisan disagreements. We find that the male and female judges perform at about the same level. Roughly similar findings show up in data from the …

White Male Heterosexist Norms In The Confirmation Process, Theresa M. Beiner

Law Faculty Scholarship

Justice Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing took a controversial turn when commentators picked up on a reference in the New York Times to a portion of a speech she gave in 2001. In that speech, then Judge Sotomayor opined that, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." That statement, along with her participation in the per curiam decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, caused a minor storm during her confirmation. More recently, former Harvard Dean and former …

Advice And Consent Vs. Silence And Dissent? The Contrasting Roles Of The Legislature In U.S. And U.K. Judicial Appointments, Mary Clark

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The Senate‘s role in judicial appointments has come under increasingly withering criticism for its uninformative and spectacle-like nature. At the same time, Britain has established two new judicial appointment processes - to accompany its new Supreme Court and existing lower courts - in which Parliament plays no role. This Article seeks to understand the reasons for the inclusion and exclusion of the legislature in the U.S. and U.K. judicial appointment processes adopted at the creation of their respective Supreme Courts.

The Article proceeds by highlighting the ideas and concerns motivating inclusion of the legislature in judicial appointments in the early …

The Four Pillars Of Constitutional Doctrine, Suzanna Sherry

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Issue 4: Table Of Contents

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sacrificing Diversity For “Quality”: How Judicial Performance Evaluations Are Failing Women & Minorities, Rebecca Wood, Sylvia R. Lazos, Mallory Waters

Scholarly Works

Because voters rely on judicial performance evaluations when casting their ballots, it is important that policymakers work diligently to compile valid, reliable and unbiased information about our sitting judges. This paper analyzes attorney surveys of judicial performance in Nevada from 1998‐2008. The survey instrument is similar to those used throughout the country for judicial evaluation programs. Unfortunately, none of the readily‐obtainable objective measures of judicial performance can explain away difference in scores based on race and sex. Minority judges and female judges score consistently and significantly lower than do their white male counterparts, all other things equal. These results are …

It's The Hard Luck Life: Women's Moral Luck And Eucatastrophe In Child Custody Allocation, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Publications

No abstract provided.

Introduction (Excerpt) In Justice Bertha Wilson: One Woman's Difference, Kim Brooks

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Bertha Wilson was the first woman to be appointed to Canada's Supreme Court in 1982. Her appointment capped off a career of firsts. She had been the first woman lawyer and partner at a prominent Toronto law firm and the first woman appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal. Her career and passing in 2007 have provoked reflection on her contributions to Canadian society and caused many to reflect on the question she herself posed: what difference do women judges make? What follows is an excerpt from the introduction to the book. The chapters of the book explore a broad …

Silencing Tory Bowen: The Legal Implications Of Word Bans In Rape Trials, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 215 (2009), Randah Atassi

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Justice Ginsburg's Struggle To Preserve Her Legacy, Kiran Mehta

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Oregon Partner Law Blocked, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.