Women in Law: Theory, Research and Practice

The increase in the number of women law students and lawyers is well-documented in Australia, as elsewhere. As a result of this increase some theorists suggest that women bring to the law a ‘different voice’ which will enable such values as caring, conciliation, empathy and mediation to become more central to legal practice. Others disagree that the maleness of law can be changed by increasing women's entry or by placing more value on so-called female qualities. What is absent, however, is the integration of empirical research and theory; assertions about women and law remain unexamined and unsubstantiated. This paper examines the processes whereby men and women lawyers are recruited to in-house legal departments and describes the type of work performed. The central argument is that women's locations within the legal profession must be investigated in order to assess the ways in which work settings constrain or enable different approaches to legal work.