Women in Law School - Research Paper Example

Women in Law School Law schools have, for a long time been dominated by male and this has created a situation where women are not treated as equals in such institutions. It has been found that women, who despite having started attending such schools many decades ago, have yet to establish themselves well within them to ensure that they excel on an equal basis as their male counterparts. Instead, women have to face many challenges in order to find success in an environment which one would consider to be extremely hostile to them. This is the reason why there is need for the continued use of affirmative action to support women who would like to get into this field, to ensure that women are not only successful in getting admitted in law schools, but also that they are treated as partners to their male counterparts rather than as subordinates. While in the United States, affirmative action has largely worked to bring women into the male dominated field of law, more still needs to be done to ensure that even more women are interested in it and that once they get there, they are able to get fair treatment. There has been, in recent years, support for women to get into the field of law, and most of this support has come from other women in the field. It has been suggested that the best way of encouraging more women to get into the field is through giving more women opportunities to fill up available leadership roles in law schools. Such a move would ensure that the voice of women is heard in the field and further, it will provide them with the opportunity for further advancement. Furthermore, it has been stated that the best way to deal with the problems that women face in law school and after is to build awareness that bias against women in law is still immensely strong and that this matter should be addressed. Literature Review McGinley (99) in her article states that there is still quite a large gap in the gender divide in the faculties of law schools all over the country. Not only do the women who work in law schools have to do jobs which are considered to be feminine by their male counterparts, but they also have to teach courses which many would consider to have been female-identified courses. McGinley argues that the leadership positions in law schools have been unfairly distributed, with women getting the lesser share than men. She states that while there are almost no women in any of the available leadership positions in law schools, men dominate nearly all of these positions, with eighty percent of the deans being men. Furthermore, men have been found to teach courses which can be considered to be prestigious as well as male-identified; furthering the rift between the sexes in law schools. She states that women have to go through differential expectations from their colleagues as well as their students and often have to bear the brunt of their male counterparts' intimidating behaviour at work. McGinley, in this article makes use of manhood studies and other research that has been conducted in the social sciences to make an identification of the gendered structures, practices, and traits that have come to bring harm to women professors practising law. She sets out to provide a hypothetical context that attempts to make an explanation of the reasons why women do not enjoy status equality in the legal field do not compared to their male counterparts. While many of the practices, which are conducted towards women in law schools, appear to be gender-neutral, they end up accomplishing the very opposite, because it works to propagate stereotypes and isolation which has been found to be harmful to women. The article works to reveal the gendered nature of the structures and practices of law schools, especially in administration, and sets out to challenge the belief of natural difference as a cause for the disproportion between men and women law professors. The conclusion of the study conducted in this article is that it is only through exposing these gender biased practices discernible, will women achieve equal status in the law schools within which they work. From the outset, Krakauer and Chen (65) state that their purpose in writing their articleis to make an exploration and consideration of the main issues which are related to the career development of female students who are attending law school. They state that despite the fact that research has been carried out on the career patterns of women who have been working in the legal profession for quite a number of years; very little information has been uncovered concerning the impact of gender-related issues that were faced by female students during their law school years. It has been noted that the number of female students who are pursuing the study of law has been steadily increasing over the years and this has created a situation where studies have to be conducted to determine how they cope. The best course of action when making a study of the increasing number of female students in a profession that has been traditionally dominated by men has been found to be through the establishment of a better understanding of the career psychology that has come to be particularly relevant to female law students. According to Krakauer and Chen, this study has been found to be both necessary and significant because it is based on the postulation that female law students may run into a range of gender-based psychological, cultural and sociological factors in the path of their professional quests. As a consequence of the persistent gender inequality that continues to pervade the legal profession, there has developed a need for female students to be prepared, so that they can be better able to gain an insight as well as the skills they need, for their career planning and decision making, so that they may be able to deal with how these problems impact their profession choices. According to Dolan, it is a fact that despite the fact that currently, the number of women who are attending law school is much larger than that of men; as women are still being discriminated against within the legal profession. It has been found that while they make up the majority of the people within the profession, women lawyers earn less than their male counterparts. In addition, they have also come to be denied any leadership positions within the profession, with the majority of school of law deans, judges, and law firm partners being men. Dolan states that according to a report that was previously published by the American Bar Association, it had been found that on average, female lawyers earned about $20,000 less than their male counterparts, and that there were significant disparities which persisted despite the fact that both the men and women in the profession had similar qualifications and experience and held similar positions. This report was among the first most comprehensive studies that had been conducted to determine what the status of women was, in the legal profession. The various studies and surveys that were conducted in making the report found that the obstacles that women in the legal profession had to face on a daily basis included insensible stereotypes, insufficient access to support networks, strict work systems, sexual abuse and prejudice within the federal court system. Dolan states that, according to the report, while women constitute about thirty percent of the lawyers in the United States, they make up only about 15% of law firm partners, 10% of law school deans, and five percentage of managing partners at firms. The report further stated that nearly half of all the women in the profession were unmarried, when compared to only 15% of their male counterparts with the same status. Furthermore, it was found that women with children are often afraid of working part time because they believed that they would be penalized. Bellows (7) states that according to the surveys that have been conducted by the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL), the percentage of female equity partners in some of the largest law firms in the United States has remained unchanged since this association started making surveys concerning this matter. She states that the fact that the percentage of female equity partners has remained at a steady fifteen percentage, which is extremely troubling, mainly because of the fact that it is a clear display of the bias that is displayed towards women in the profession. This shows that the legal profession is still a male dominated field, and that efforts are being made, unconsciously, to make keep the profession as it is, undermining the contribution of women toward it. Bellows further provides an example of the pay gap that continues to exist between female equity partners and their male counterparts, stating that the former, who work in two hundred of the largest firms in the country, earn 89% of the compensation earned by the latter. She further states that gender inequality does not just affect equity partners since according to an NAWL survey, both the percentages of female equity partners and associates in the typical firm have been on a decline during the past two years. Bellows finds that women of color face the greatest challenges and this can be noted through the fact that these women make up only 2% of the total number of female equity partner in law firms. It has been found that the unequal treatment of women in the legal profession does not begin in law firms, and instead begins during their law school years. Bellows states that according to a report, in law schools, women held only 31% of editor in chief positions at law reviews in 2011-2012 in their respective law schools, a number which is extremely disproportionate considering that the number of male and female students is almost equal. While the discrimination which female students faced in law schools has now more or less disappeared, gender bias has remained persistent, with the discrimination being more unconscious and more subtle. Mitchell states that the increase of women in the legal profession has come about because of the increase in their admissions over time to professional law schools. It was extremely difficult for women to get into the legal profession mainly because of the fact that many of them were not allowed to get into professional schools up to the middle of the twentieth century. Harvard Law School, for instance, did not allow women enrollments until 1950, while Lee University and Washington School of Law were the final American schools of law to open its doors to women in the year 1972. Currently, according to Mitchell, the number of women who graduate from law school in is about the same as the number of their male counterparts. However, despite the fact that women have made huge strides in the legal profession, there are very few women who hold any managerial positions. Because of the pressure they encounter in the male dominated law firms, many of these women choose to move into the corporate sector, where hours can be more predictable. Mitchell follows Bellows’ example by quoting the National Association of Women Lawyers’ statistics that states that women occupy about 15% of the equity partnership seats in the large law firms of the United States. Mitchell goes even further and states that of the two hundred law firms surveyed, only about 4% of them had a woman holding the position of firm-wide managing partner. Despite the fact that there are a greater number of women in the field of law today, the gaps in the wages between men and women continue to persist. A survey carried out in 2007 by Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz, showed that the median income of female lawyers stood at about $90,000, when compared to the $122,000 that male lawyers received. Conclusion In conclusion, it can be said that while women have increasingly taken up an active role in the legal profession, the bias and segregation against them is still an ongoing process, which needs to be addressed. Women are an important part of the legal system, because they not only bring within it a different view of things, but they also bring diversity into the profession. The fact that those who dominate the field have denied these women the opportunity to take up their rightful position is most unfortunate and it should be remedied, to ensure that there is equity in the profession. The literature that has been analyzed above provides a clear picture of how women are treated not only in law schools but also when they get into the professional world as well. The disproportionate number of women who are involved in leadership positions in the legal profession is a shameful fact in the field and more studies have to be conducted concerning it so that ways can be found to solve this problem. While there is some literature concerning the gender differences and bias against women in law school, there seems not to be enough of it to create a comprehensive understanding of the issues involved. It is therefore necessary that this subject be addressed because this is the only way through which the issues can be understood and addressed. The literature review above provides a small picture of the biases that women undergo in the legal profession and one would state that the issues that they discuss are just the tip of the iceberg. It is most likely that future research will make more revelations concerning the treatment of women in law schools and this might spark a movement towards a change in the attitudes that put them in such different situations from their male counterparts. Works Cited Bellows, Laurel. "Let's Shatter the Glass Ceiling." ABA Journal 99.2 (2013): 7-. Dolan, Maura. "Female Lawyers Suffer Bias, Study Finds; Courts: Despite Growing Numbers in the Profession, Survey by Bar Association Finds Women are Paid Less and Face Sexual Harassment." Los Angeles Times: 0. Apr 27 2001. Krakauer, Lianne, and Chen, Charles P. "Gender Barriers in the Legal Profession: Implications for Career Development of Female Law Students." Journal of Employment Counseling 40.2 (2003): 65-79. McGinley, Ann C. "Reproducing Gender on Law School Faculties." Brigham Young University Law Review 2009.1 (2009): 99-155. Mitchell, Josh. "Women Notch Progress; Females Now Constitute One-Third of Nation's Ranks of Doctors and Lawyers." Wall Street Journal (Online): n/a. Dec 04 2012. Read More