4 ms·

> 3) they don't fix the underlying issues Quotas and affirmative action have worked successfully in other fields. Law in the US was a hostile profession to wo

by throwaway19937 6y ago

> 3) they don't fix the underlying issues Quotas and affirmative action have worked successfully in other fields. Law in the US was a hostile profession to women in the 1950s and 1960s. Ruth Bader Ginsburg (first in her class at Columbia) and Sandra Day O'Connor (third in her class at Stanford), for example, both had trouble finding work after graduation. The legal industry addressed sexism by making gender balance an explicit goal. Law schools admitted equal numbers of men and women; law firms hired equal numbers of male and female associates. Women now make up 36% of lawyers and the majority of law school graduates.

s1artibartfast 6y ago
Do you have any information on firms and law schools having gender balance quotas? I did a quick search but didn't find anything.
- throwaway19937 6y ago
  AFAIK gender balance quotas are no longer in effect. Gender ratios are widely tracked within the industry, though, e.g. (https://ylw.yale.edu/top-firms/ https://ylw.yale.edu/top-firms/). Also clients for legal services often have their own diversity requirements (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/02/business/dealbook/facebook-pushes-outside-law-firms-to-become-more-diverse.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/02/business/dealbook/faceboo...). If you're looking for a historical reference, (https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=facpub https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...) is 26 pages and covers the history of women in law from 1920 to 1970. Cynthia Epstein's Women in Law should cover this topic but I haven't yet read it.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    Thanks for the references, but I didnt see anything about quotas for admissions and associates. Setting hard quotas is pretty different than tracking diversity as a key performance metric
    - throwaway19937 6y ago
      I haven't found any online sources that discuss them in detail; it's certainly possible that I'm mistaken about this.

s1artibartfast 6y ago

Do you have any information on firms and law schools having gender balance quotas? I did a quick search but didn't find anything.

throwaway19937 6y ago
AFAIK gender balance quotas are no longer in effect. Gender ratios are widely tracked within the industry, though, e.g. (https://ylw.yale.edu/top-firms/ https://ylw.yale.edu/top-firms/). Also clients for legal services often have their own diversity requirements (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/02/business/dealbook/facebook-pushes-outside-law-firms-to-become-more-diverse.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/02/business/dealbook/faceboo...). If you're looking for a historical reference, (https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=facpub https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...) is 26 pages and covers the history of women in law from 1920 to 1970. Cynthia Epstein's Women in Law should cover this topic but I haven't yet read it.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  Thanks for the references, but I didnt see anything about quotas for admissions and associates. Setting hard quotas is pretty different than tracking diversity as a key performance metric
  - throwaway19937 6y ago
    I haven't found any online sources that discuss them in detail; it's certainly possible that I'm mistaken about this.