User:Peter morrell/women lawyers

Due to a range of cultural, socio-economic, legal and religious factors women have been generally excluded from entering many occupations until very recent times. This includes the higher professions of Law, Medicine and the Church.

Situation in Britain
"Four women passed the Law Society's examinations in 1922, and on December 18 that year the first woman solicitor was admitted.The first women to pass their examination were Maud Crofts, Carrie Morrison, Mary Pickup and Mary Sykes in 1922. In 1913 the Law Society refused to allow four women to sit the Law Society examinations. The women took the case to the Court of Appeal. But in a famous case, Bebb v The Law Society, the Court of Appeal upheld the Law Society's decision. The Judge, Mr Justice Joyce, ruled that women were not "persons" within the meaning of the Solicitors Act of 1843. It was not until 1919, when the Sex Disqualification Act was passed, that women were allowed to practice law. The first women to pass their examination were Maud Crofts, Carrie Morrison, Mary Pickup and Mary Sykes in 1922. Carrie Morrison finished her articles first out of the four women, and was the first woman to be admitted to the role of solicitor. She and Maud Crofts were already no strangers to sex discrimination. When they graduated from Girton College, Cambridge with First Class Honours, the university authorities refused to award them their degrees because they were women. Although they were allowed to study, attend lectures and sit exams, women could not hold degrees. Maud Crofts, who was involved in the 1913 Court of Appeal case, was a prominent suffragette. When she went into practice with her father and brother, her clientele included wealthy and influential members of the women's suffrage movement.

Although these women were breaking new ground in Britain, their American counterparts had already pioneered the way. The first woman lawyer in the English-speaking world was Arabella Mansfield, who was admitted to the Iowa state bar in June 1869. But in Britain, it continued to be an uphill struggle for women even after 1922. If women did not have fathers or husbands who were lawyers, it was often financially impossible for them to get articles, for which there was a yearly premium of something between 300-500 guineas (1 guinea = 1 pound and one shilling, so in pounds £330-550, equivalent in 2009 money to about £60,000 - £110,000). Although wealthy parents may have been willing to invest in their sons, paying this amount for daughters was rare. In 1931, nine years after Carrie Morrison had been admitted, only about 100 women had qualified as solicitors. The numbers continued to rise relatively slowly until the last decade or so. As recently as 1967, only 2.7% of solicitors holding certificates were women....Judges are even slower in catching up. Of 96 High Court Judges, only seven are women, and there is only one Lord Justice of Appeal from a total of 35. Only Lady Hale has ever succeeded in promotion to the highest British court, now the Supreme Court, and currently sits with 11 other men. "

The percentage of Women lawyers in the UK
 * 1957 1.94%
 * 1967 2.7%
 * 1971 3%
 * 1977 7.33%
 * 1985 13%
 * 1987 16%
 * 1997 32.75%
 * 1999 35%
 * 2010 40% (est)

"The first woman to become a solicitor, Carrie Morrison, qualified in 1923. It had taken the passing of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 for women to be permitted to become solicitors or barristers at all. Initially the AWS was an informal grouping of young female articled clerks who met in the early 1920s in vacant classrooms after lectures. 1923 is generally regarded as being the AWS’s founding year. The Association’s first public function was the entertaining of a group of American women lawyers in July 1930 and its first Annual Dinner was held in 1934."

Odds and ends
Re Canada: ''Women make up approximately one-third of Canadian lawyers. They are under-represented in private practice (26 per cent) and over-represented in the public sector (40 per cent). They are 60 per cent more likely to leave law than men.''

Re UK: Women account for 11 per cent of all judges in England and Wales, and ethnic minorities for a mere 1.7 per cent, according to figures from 1999.

Re US: ''Women are now a permanent and integral part of the legal profession, comprising 24 percent of the nation's lawyers. The percentage of women lawyers has nearly doubled since 1985, when it was 13 percent, and is eight times the percentage of women who practiced law in 1971 (three percent). Women's place in the profession continues to grow. Forty-four percent of all law students are women, and it is expected that women will make up 40 percent of the legal profession by 2010. At the same time, current projections suggest that the legal profession will never be 50 percent women, even though women are more than 50 percent of the population.''

Re the US: ''The statistics are compelling. For example, 44 percent of women lawyers of color working in a large law firm reported that they had been passed over for desirable assignments, compared to 39 percent of white women, 25 percent of men of color and only 2 percent of white men. Similarly, 62 percent of women of color disclosed that they had been excluded from formal and informal networking opportunities, compared to 60 percent of white women, 31 percent of men of color and 4 percent of white men, and 31 percent of women of color reported receiving at least one unfair performance evaluation, compared to 25 percent of white women, 21 percent of men of color and less than 1 percent of white men.''

''The annual median salary of women lawyers in the USA is 73 per cent that of men’s. In academia, women amount to only 10 per cent of deans, though they represent about half of the law student population.''

Re the UK: ''The position of women in the legal profession in the UK in many ways mirrors that of the USA. The Law Society of England and Wales confirmed that there has been a dramatic rise in the number of women in the profession. In 1987 women comprised less than one fifth of all solicitors. By 1999 women held 35 per cent of practising certificates, an increase of 14 per cent since 1989.4 As in the USA, women lawyers tend to remain clustered at the lower levels. Although women have been in the majority since 1992-93, most are assistant solicitors, only one quarter of female solicitors becoming partners, compared with over half of male solicitors. The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) explain this tendency in part by reference to the average age of women solicitors holding a practising certificate (36 years) relative to males (43). The statistics for the Bar are no more encouraging. Women represent 26 per cent of barristers in independent practice, with men representing 74 per cent.5 Of these, only 8 per cent of Queen’s Counsel are female. Of the judiciary, there are no female lords of appeal in ordinary. Only 6 per cent of appeal court judges and 7 per cent of high court judges are female, whereas 19 per cent of deputy district judges and 15 per cent of district judges were female.6 Of pupils registered with the Bar Council in 200-01, 48 per cent were female and 52 per cent male.''

''But, of course, the test of these reforms is whether they have made a difference to the numbers of women and minority ethnic judges. I'm delighted to say, they have. In 1998, 1 in 10 judges in the courts were women. By last year, that figure had increased to just over 15 per cent. And the number of judges in the courts of minority ethnic origin doubled to 3.4 per cent. And when you take into account all judges, including those in tribunals, the percentages of women and minority ethnic office-holders are even greater. The proportion of women rises to almost 25 per cent, and that of minority ethnic judges to nearly 7 per cent.''

Links to external sites

 * Women's Legal History Project
 * Women lawyers
 * Australian Women Lawyers
 * National Association of Women Lawyers, USA
 * Cambridge University Association of Women Lawyers
 * Association of Women Solicitors, UK

Category:Law Category:Gender studies Category:Professions Category:History Category:History Category:Women judges Category:Female lawyers