Are there fewer women at your law school?
posted by Jennifer Collins
I am delighted to be back at Concurring Opinions and want to thank Dan and the gang for inviting me to return. There is an interesting article in the National Law Journal today describing how the percentage of women in law school has declined each year since 2002. The article mentions the strong economy and availability of other well-paying jobs as contributing to the decline, but states that “the prevailing message is that fewer women want a lawyer’s life.” So for our law professor readers — are you seeing fewer women at your law school these days? For our student readers — what do you think is responsible for the decline? Do you think women have been scared off from law school by the media’s portrayal of the law as a profession that is not family-friendly?
October 1, 2007 at 9:59 am
Posted in: Law School
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Responses (3)
anon - October 1, 2007 at 11:12 am
I am not sure about the overall student population, but I have noticed that, for instance, we have fewer women each year on the Law Review, a commitment which probably has the same sort of negative connotations as a high-powered firm career–demanding, time-consuming, not conducive to family life (for those female students who have families) and, perhaps, just not worth it (at least at higher-ranked schools where getting a job is less of a concern).
Margaret - October 1, 2007 at 11:14 am
I don’t know about the profession yet, being a 2L this year, but I sure do know that law school itself is not particularly family-friendly. The school could draw more women if it offered childcare, packed the schedule with classes in the morning, and gave me fewer blank stares when I have to mention that I have a kid at home.
I’m a lucky one, though; I get along OK with my ex and mostly do not have custody conflicts. But I have to imagine that the lack of daycare is a super barrier to women who have kids and also have the abilities to attend a top law school.
A note about career counseling comes to mind. I keep hearing about the great jobs that’ll be lined up for me when I finish school, but I can’t work 70 hours a week as a new associate gunning for partnership. Schools’ career counseling offices should focus not just on the high-powered associate positions, but also on decently remunerative work that’s more able to be squared with family responsibilities.
John Steele - October 1, 2007 at 10:34 pm
To follow up on an idea I floated at Tax Law Prof Blog’s series on advice for Dean Erwin Chemerinsky of UC-Irvine, if law schools added an LL.B program for undergraduates, then, among many other benefits, lawyers who wanted to start families in their early thirties would be able to get a law degree with little debt, sink a full decade or more into becoming a practicing laywer, and then balance a family with part-time lawyering or leave the profession for a while, knowing that their twelve years of experience would permit them to jump back in later. Those benefits wouldn’t accrue only to women, but to all lawyers who wanted to balance lawyering and family life.
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