Vol. 13 No. 9 (September 2003)

WOMEN IN THE WORLD’S LEGAL PROFESSIONS, edited by Ulrike Schultz and Gisela Shaw.  Onati International Series in Law and Society, Oxford and Portland, OR: Hart Publishing, 2003.  482 pp. Hardback £55, ISBN 1-84113-319-1, Paper £30, ISBN 1-84113-320-5.

Reviewed by Carla Thorson, Department of Political Science, UCLA.  E-mail: cthorson@ucla.edu

Does the legal profession change women, or do women change the legal profession?  This is the central question driving this interdisciplinary, international project entitled, WOMEN IN THE WORLD’S LEGAL PROFESSIONS edited by Ulrike Schultz of FernUniversitaet (Hagen, Germany), and Gisela Shaw of the University of the West of England (Bristol, UK).  An anthology written by twenty-eight lawyers, sociologists, and feminist theorists, this volume follows in the footsteps of Cynthia Fuchs Epstein and Carrie Menkel-Meadow, bringing together analyses of women in the legal professions of fifteen countries across four continents (Australia, New Zealand, East Asia, USA, and Latin America).  The question itself is broad enough to prompt a wide variety of responses from the contributors; while the scope of the undertaking is extensive enough to raise significant methodological challenges.  One can either applaud the effort or fault it for attempting too much, but either way, this work will appeal to all those interested in how women are faring in the legal profession around the globe.

Organized not so much by theoretical approach, but by legal traditions, the book is divided into Common Law and Civil Law countries.  The differences inherent in the two legal traditions make comparison of women practicing law across cases difficult, and this is compounded by national differences in the organization and structure of the legal profession and in the language of legal concepts and terms. Women began entering the legal profession in the late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries as the women’s suffrage movement successfully removed the barriers to a legal career. As such, it is a relatively short history, and for some of the countries surveyed, there simply hasn’t been sufficient time for women to make their presence substantially felt in the field.  Each of the contributions to the volume is focused on women in the legal profession of a particular country, but the approach to this issue varies widely.

In some cases, there is quantitative assessment, such as Rosemary Hunter on Australia, Georgina Murray on New Zealand, Clare S. McGlynn on the United Kingdom, and Ulrike Schultz on Germany.  These contributions paint a portrait not only of how many women have entered the legal profession, but also what areas of the profession are more populated with women than men, their degree and direction of mobility.  In most of the countries surveyed, the share of female practicing lawyers tends to be around one-quarter to one-third.  While in the judicial field there is a striking difference between civil law and common law countries, in the latter, women hold only a fraction of the positions.  These figures stand in contrast to the numbers of women entering law schools, now on a par with men in virtually every country discussed in this volume and surpassing male enrollment in some cases.

This raises questions about the qualitative success enjoyed by women in the legal profession—questions addressed by many of the contributors to this anthology.  This cross-national comparison reveals that, despite significant inroads, women remain on the fringes of the profession.  For example, Schultz notes that positions for women are often more insecure, working on temporary contracts, under less favorable working conditions, and are often overqualified.  Among practicing attorneys, women are more often sole practitioners (Germany) or working in small law firms (Japan).  Moreover, income differentials remain significant within and across national boundaries; women are less likely to be made partners, less likely to specialize in high profile areas of the law, and less likely to profit from upward mobility.  In fact, women experience high degrees of mobility but this movement is usually lateral or downward.  The judiciary is the one area of the profession that seems to be bucking this trend.  Particularly in civil law countries where posts are allocated on the basis of academic merit and women tend to prefer the advantages of public service, the number of women jurists has risen significantly.  Half the judges in France and Italy are women, and worldwide the figure is around one-quarter.

WOMEN IN THE WORLD’S LEGAL PROFESSIONS provides substantial evidence to support the conclusion that women are entering the legal profession in increasing numbers and permeating the profession, but it also reveals segregation along gender lines.  The traditional male dominated structures of the profession survive, and women remain in the lower ranks and at the margins.  The answer to the question – “Does the profession change women?” – is not really answered in this study, but the answer to the second question – “Do women change the profession?” – is more easily found.  Several of the contributors argue that women lawyer differently than men (Felstiner, Lettit, Lind, Olsen, and Sommerlad), and this impacts how clients view their attorneys.  In addition, in the judiciary, it also affects case outcomes and public perceptions of justice.  These issues deserve further exploration.

There is still more work to be done.  By focusing on the developed world, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and the Islamic world, among others, are unfortunately not represented.  In some cases this is simply due to lack of information, Schultz notes, and in other cases it was not possible to identify a colleague to collect the data.  There is a strong likelihood that particular cultural and national characteristics of countries in the developing world will color women in the legal profession as it does women in other roles in these societies.  A comparison of the developed and the developing world could prove to be a useful addition to what is already the most extensive survey of women in the legal profession around the world to date.

REFERENCES:

Epstein, Cynthia Fuchs.  1993.  WOMEN IN LAW (2nd ed.).  Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Menkel-Meadow, Carrie. 1985. “Portia in a Different Voice: Speculations on a Woman's Lawyering Process,” 1 BERKELEY WOMEN'S LAW JOURNAL 39-63.

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Copyright 2003 by the author, Carla Thorson.