Legal Profession Commons^™

Leiper, Bar Codes: Women In The Legal Profession; Mossman, The First Women Lawyers: A Comparative Study Of Gender, Law And The Legal Professions, Renee Newman Knake

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Starting Out: Changing Patterns Of First Jobs For Michigan Law School Graduates, Terry K. Adams, David L. Chambers

Articles

In the early 1950s, the typical graduate of Michigan Law began his career working as an associate in a law firm with four other lawyers and earned about $5,000 in his first year. Surprising to us today, in his new job he would have earned slightly less than other classmates whose first jobs were in government. Fifty years later, in the early 2000s, the typical graduate still started out as an associate in a law firm, but the firm she worked for had more than 400 lawyers. She earned about $114,000 in her first year, about three times as much …

Who We Were And Who We Are: How Michigan Law Students Have Changed Since The 1950s: Findings From 40 Years Of Alumni Surveys, David L. Chambers, Terry K. Adams

Articles

For 40 consecutive years, from 1967 to 2006, the Law School surveyed its alumni regarding their lives and careers. The project began in 1967 with the mailing of a questionnaire to the class of 1952 shortly before their 15th reunion. The results proved interesting enough that surveys were sent each year thereafter to the class 15 years out. In 1973, the classes 5 years out were added to the survey.

Clark Memorandum: Fall 2008, J. Reuben Clark Law Society, Byu Law School Alumni Association, J. Reuben Clark Law School

The Clark Memorandum

• A Law upon Which All Blessings are Predicated (David A. Thomas)
• The Lawyer as Peacemaker (Matthew B. Durrant)
• Women in the Law (Nan Barker)
• With Charity for All (Matthew S. Holland)

Red Light, Green Light: Assessing The Stop And Go In The Advancement Of Women In The Legal And Business Sectors, Megan Erb

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

The purpose of this note is to identify the problems professional women have in building a career while caring for a family, and to provide the basis for creating a solution. Part I of this note addresses the various types of problems that force women out of the workplace, as well as the difficulties women have in reentering the job market. Part II of this note compares the alternative work schedules offered in the legal and business communities. Part III focuses on the success the business firms have had, with the help of business schools, in finding a practical solution …

'No Right To Judge': Feminism And The Judiciary In Third Republic France, Sara L. Kimble

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Faculty and Staff Works

No abstract provided.

Walking The Path Of The Law: How Law Graduates Navigate Career Choices And Tolerate Jobs That Fail To Meet Expectations, Deborah J. Cantrell, Elizabeth Levy Paluck, Heather Lord, April Smith

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article presents a longitudinal study of Yale Law School graduates from 1970 to 1999, analyzing their career paths, job satisfaction, and gender differences in professional experiences. It highlights the prevalence of career transitions, with many graduates moving from private practice to academia, government, or public interest roles. The study reveals significant gender disparities in job satisfaction and work-life balance, while challenging common assumptions about legal careers, such as the notion that women abandon private practice more frequently than men. The analysis underscores the importance of understanding career dynamics to improve support systems for law graduates.

Walking The Path Of The Law: How Law Graduates Navigate Career Choices And Tolerate Jobs That Fail To Meet Expectations, Deborah J. Cantrell, Elizabeth Levy Paluck, Heather Lord, April Smith

Publications

If one talks to law students about the their career expectations, one is likely to hear a common story: when the student graduates, she plans to go into private practice, or possibly take a government job, or even less probably, take a public interest job. The students think their initial choices of legal jobs set them on a career trajectory that is fairly immutable. However, the students' beliefs may not be based on actual information about how lawyers choose their career paths.

This empirical study of 2800 lawyers who graduated from law school between 1970 and 1999 analyzes whether lawyers …

Brain, Gender, Law: A Cautionary Tale, Carlin Meyer

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Arthur S. Leonard

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Not All Lawyers Are Equal: Difficulties That Plague Women And Women Of Color, Theresa M. Beiner

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Banding Together: Reflections Of The Role Of The Women's Bar Association Of The District Of Columbia And The Washington College Of Law In Promoting Women's Rights, Daniela Kraiem, Jamie Rene Abrams

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

The Gender Trap: Flexible Work In Corporate Legal Practice, Margaret Thornton, Joanne Bagust

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Despite the fact that women comprise well over 50 per cent of law graduates in many parts of the world, women lawyers continue to be clustered disproportionately in the lower echelons of the profession. This paper considers the role of flexible work as a gender equity strategy and is illuminated by interviews with lawyers in elite corporate firms in Australia. It is argued that far from being a panacea, flexible work is being invoked to confine women to subordinate roles and to restrict access to partnerships. Not only is there a residual suspicion of the feminine in positions of authority …

Judging Magic: Can You See The Sleight Of Hand?, Rebecca Johnson

Michigan Law Review

Cultural critic bell hooks says, "Movies make magic. They change things. They take the real and make it into something else right before our very eyes." Movies do not, of course, have an exclusive hold on this ability to change one thing into something else. Law, too, possesses this power. Certainly, one must acknowledge some significant differences in the "magic" of filmic and legal texts. For the most part, as willing consumers of cultural products, we "choose" to subject ourselves to the magic of film. We sit in a darkened theater and let ourselves be taken away to a different …

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Form And Substance: Standards For Promotion And Retention Of Legal Writing Faculty On Clinical Tenure Track, Melissa H. Weresh

ExpressO

This article compares standards for promotion and retention of legal writing faculty on a clinical tenure track. The article provides a brief history of legal writing professionals and examines specific employment criteria such as teaching, service, and scholarship. The article makes recommendations regarding those criteria based upon an assessment of institutional realities and the historical development of the profession.

Imagining The Law-Trained Reader: The Faulty Description Of The Audience In Legal Writing Textbooks., Jessica E. Price

ExpressO

In law schools today, first-year legal writing courses play a crucial role in helping students learn to communicate about the law. Many legal writing teachers approach legal writing education in a practical way, attempting to pass on their own experiences in law practice settings to students. Unfortunately, as other writers have observed, such reliance on personal knowledge about “what lawyers are like” may lead legal writing teachers to oversimplify a complicated matter – the needs and preferences of the audience for legal writing – and may even amount to indoctrination in stereotypes about law practice. This article offers a closer …

Multistable Figures: Sexual Orientation Visibility And Its Effects On The Experiences Of Sexual Minorities In The Courts, Todd Brower

ExpressO

A multistable figure is a cognitive illusion in which a single drawing contains multiple, competing images. On first viewing a person will see one image, but not the other – it usually requires additional information to trigger the viewer’s awareness of the second image. However, once you know about the disparate figures in the illustration, you cannot erase that knowledge from your mind and see a sole image as you did originally. This inability to ignore information and its effect on subsequent experience has parallels in lesbians’ and gay men’s treatment in the courts.

Courts today are deeply involved in …

The Focus Factor, B. Glenn George

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Accurate Or Appalling: Representations Of Women Lawyers In Popular Culture, Laura Grosshans

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The note explores the challenges and advancements faced by women in the legal profession through the characters of Amanda Bonner from Adam's Rib and Miranda Hobbes from Sex and the City. These characters, both successful female attorneys, illustrate the societal and professional obstacles women have encountered in the legal field during the latter half of the 20th century. The analysis highlights their struggles with sexism, work-life balance, and romantic relationships, while emphasizing the role of media representation in shaping public perceptions of women lawyers. The note argues that while progress has been made, achieving true equality in the legal …

Re-Defining Superwoman: An Essay On Overcoming The "Maternal Wall" In The Legal Workplace, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Faculty Publications

As Professor Joan Williams comments, most women never even approach the glass ceiling; they are "stopped dead, long beforehand, by the maternal wall." The maternal wall affects women with children in many aspects of their jobs, including hiring, promotions, pay, and even terminations. It is difficult for mothers to perform as ideal workers, because pregnancy, maternity leave, and the continual demands of child-rearing inevitably cause them to be absent from work. In addition, because mothers are not similarly situated to men or women without children, courts permit employers to treat them differently, which usually means they are treated more poorly. …

Paid Family Leave In American Law Schools: Findings And Open Questions, Laura T. Kessler

ExpressO

There exists a substantial literature on the status of women in the legal profession, including studies on women students’ experiences in law schools, gender bias on law school faculties, and family leave policies and practices among legal employers. However, no recent study examines the family leave policies and practices in American law schools. This study seeks to fill that gap. Its findings are threefold. First, almost three quarters of law schools provide wage replacement during a family leave that is more generous than required by federal law. Second, there is a positive relationship between teaching at top-tier and private law …

Essay: The Romance Of Nuremberg And The Tease Of Moral Justice, Thane Rosenbaum

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Emancipation Through Secularization: French Feminist Views Of Muslim Women’S Condition In Interwar Algeria, Sara L. Kimble

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Faculty and Staff Works

Cet article examine la condition des musulmanes algériennes telle que vue par des féministes françaises entre les deux guerres mondiales. Une série de colloques nationaux et internationaux dans la région méditerranéenne analysa les limitations imposées sur les filles et les femmes musulmanes par la tradition patriarcale et s'adressa au gouvernement pour demander des réformes. Cet article démontre que ces féministes françaises approuvaient la « mission civilisatrice » de la France et conseillaient des mesures visant la modernisation, « le progrès » et la laïcité en Algérie. Alors que ces féministes orientalistes critiquaient le Code Civil de 1804 comme une source …

Confronting Conventional Thinking: The Heuristics Problem In Feminist Legal Theory, Nancy Levit

Faculty Works

The thesis of The Heuristics Problem is that the societal problems about which identity theorists are most concerned often spring from and are reinforced by thinking riddled with heuristic errors. This article first investigates the ways heuristic errors influence popular perceptions of feminist issues. Feminists and critical race theorists have explored the cognitive bias of stereotyping, but have not examined the ways probabilistic errors can have gendered consequences. Second, The Heuristics Problem traces some of the ways cognitive errors have influenced the development of laws relating to gender issues. It explores instances in judicial decisions in which courts commit heuristic …

Why Care About The History Of Women In The Legal Profession, Mary Clark

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Tribute To John Pickering, Marcia Greenberger

Michigan Law Review

This room is filled with many women lawyers. All of us loved John Pickering and are in his debt, but we are only a small number of those who do. For many decades, John guided young, and I must admit not so young, women lawyers to positions where they could stand up for their own rights and the rights of others. He worked with us to champion the causes that matter most to women and their families. John used his great stature and the enormous respect that he garnered to open doors for women to leadership positions in the bar, …

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Women Lawyers, Their Status, Influence, And Retention In The Legal Profession, Paula A. Patton

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Shadow Of Professor Kingsfield: Contemporary Dilemmas Facing Women Law Professors, Martha Chamallas

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.