Carroll Seron

Negotiating Professionalism The Gendered Social Capital of Flexible Time

Sociological research on the professions studies the public workplace and the ways in which task, organizational, and institutional arrangements of select occupations coalesce to secure expertise to work autonomously. The authors argue that a neat public/private divide does not, however, actually fit professional practice. Rather, the time demands of professional tasks are open-ended, and underscoring this practice, organizational policies do not compensate for extended professional hours. To ensure the viability of this task-organizational arrangement, professions require an institutional system of social capital or release from the time demands of private obligations. Using data about allocation of time from a study of self-employed professionals, the authors demonstrate the ways in which access to time is qualitatively different for men and women. In the conclusion, the authors discuss the ways in which an analysis of time provides an entry point for explaining the persistence of deeply gendered professional hierarchies.

The Impact of Legal Counsel on Outcomes for Poor Tenants in New York City's Housing Court: Results of a Randomized Experiment

This article presents results of the first randomized experimental evaluation of a legal assistance program for low-income tenants in New York Citys Housing Court. The results demonstrate that the provision of legal counsel produces large differences in outcomes for low-income tenants in housing court, independent of the merits of the case. For example, only 22% of represented tenants had final judgments against them, compared with 51 % of tenants without legal representation. Similarly large advantages for tenants with an attorney also were found in eviction orders and stipulations requiring the landlord to provide rent abatements or repairs. In addition, the results suggest that a program of legal assistance for low-income tenants would not increase significantly the number of appearances in court, although it would increase the number of days to final judgment. The program may enhance the efficiency of adjudication by reducing the number of motions filed, particularly post-judgment motions. Limitations and policy implications of the study are discussed. Introduction This article reports findings from a randomized experiment to test the effects of a program that provided legal representation to low-income tenants in New York Citys Housing Court. While almost all landlords in Housing Court have the benefit of legal representation, the vast majority of tenants do not (Task Force 1986; Community & Training Resource Center 1993). Legal advocates for the poor have thus argued for a right to legal counsel in Housing Court, similar to the right that exists in Criminal Court, on grounds that it would ensure due process of law and procedural safeguards in an area of vital interest to tenants, their families, and society (Gideon v. Wainwright 1963). Aside from the question of cost, arguments against a right to counsel in Housing Court center primarily on the administrative burden on the Court that such an expansion of legal assistance might entail (Heydebrand & Seron 1990). Briefly, the findings from this experiment show that low-income tenants with legal representation experience significantly more beneficial outcomes than their counterparts who do not have legal representation, independent of the merits of the case. Furthermore, the findings from this experiment suggest that the presence of legal representation may impose only modest time delays or other indicators of administrative burden on the court system and may even be more efficient for the courts in certain respects. The article begins with the background of the study, including the history and function of Housing Court, prior research on the operations and outcomes of Housing Court, and the design and development of the legal assistance program that was the object of the evaluation. It then presents the experimental design of the evaluation, presents empirical findings, and discusses the limitations as well as the implications of the findings for housing policy and the reform of Housing Court in New York City. Background In the early 1970s, the State of New York created a specialized Housing Court Part under the jurisdiction of the Civil Court of the City of New York (hereafter referred to as Housing Court) to enforce state and local laws regulating housing conditions and to adjudicate landlord-tenant disputes. A number of other large cities established specialized housing courts as well during this time (Galowitz 1999). While New Yorks Housing Court hears disputes between landlords and tenants over a range of issues, by far the most common case is a claim filed by a landlord to evict tenants for nonpayment of rent. Annually, New Yorks Housing Court handles about 300,000 cases and issues nearly 100,000 warrants of eviction (Galowitz 1999). Although the vast majority of tenants in Housing Court appear in court pro se (that is, they represent themselves without an attorney), most landlords have lawyers. For example, one study found that 21 % of tenants in Housing Court were represented by a lawyer, whereas 78% of landlords were represented by a lawyer (Citywide Task Force on Housing Court [Task Force] 1986). …

The dialectic between expert knowledge and professional discretion: accreditation, social control and the limits of instrumental logic

Cycles of reform have been a constant feature of engineering education. This study suggests that these cycles are endemic because engineering begins with a particularly instrumental conception of responsible preparation. The instrumental logic of engineering repeatedly undermines educational reforms seeking to cultivate the capacities for discretionary interpretation and judgment at the root of professional practice. Using interviews with faculty at two new engineering colleges in the United States, we show how this instrumental logic once again leads to retreat from educational reform. Beginning with criticisms of engineerings failure to produce innovative and socially responsible engineers, new engineering schools attempted to address directly the limitations of instrumental rationality by creating curricula that would immerse students from the very outset of their engineering education in the ambiguous work of client-defined problem-solving. Rather than begin with the expertise grounded in mathematics and science and then teach how to apply that knowledge through known techniques, both programs asked students to become inquirers seeking knowledge, rather than implementers applying knowledge. As the programs sought legitimacy for their innovations through professional accreditation, however, the open-ended, exploratory processes of serendipitous learning were instrumentalized into a set of measurable procedures for acquiring standard, scientific expertise as the essential credential of the responsible engineer.

Persistence Is Cultural: Professional Socialization and the Reproduction of Sex Segregation

Why does sex segregation in professional occupations persist? Arguing that the cultures and practices of professional socialization serve to perpetuate this segregation, the authors examine the case of engineering. Using interview and diary entry data following students from college entry to graduation, the authors show how socialization leads women to develop less confidence that they will “fit” into the culture of engineering. The authors identify three processes that produce these cultural mismatches: orientation to engineering at college entry, initiation rituals in coursework and team projects, and anticipatory socialization during internships and summer jobs. Informal interactions with peers and everyday sexism in teams and internships are particularly salient building blocks of segregation.

THE SYMBOLIC MEANINGS OF PROFESSIONAL TIME

A core value of professionalism is the claim that work should embody the primary commitment and identity of the incumbent. The major professions are “greedy institutions” and demand of practitioners that their work take priority over other facets of social life. Today, in the face of a growing escalation of work hours expected of practitioners combined with an increase in the proportion of women in professional life, there are growing demands to reschedule work to permit part-time and other forms of alternative work schedules and to recognize time commitment of practitioners to the family. These developments challenge a cornerstone of the values attached to professional commitment. The organizational context of work mediates a broader claim to a shared professionalism as well as the ways in which part-time and flexible scheduling unfold in practice. Hours at work in different organizational settings – government, industry and private firms – serve as a proxy for explaining commitment and, in turn, professionalism. In this paper, we compare the symbolic meaning of part-time professional work among lawyers in government agencies, industry and large corporate law firms to explain its consequences for the social meanings of professionalism, including lawyers’ techniques for coping with the stigmas attached to parttime status. 011 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 011 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 011 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 Legal Professions: Work, Structure and Organization, pages 79–94. Copyright

New strategies for getting clients: Urban and suburban lawyers' views

A survey of a random sample of attorneys reveals that they have a lukewarm attitude toward newer, more businesslike client-getting strategies ; respondents also strongly agree that these techniques have a negative impact on the publics image of the profession. Do structural factors of the profession explain attitudes toward professional practices ? The findings show both persistent intraprofessional tensions around the impact of these new practices on the image of the profession and tension between older and younger attorneys over advertising and development of legal plans.

The Prospects and Perils of Ending Mass Incarceration in the United States

Until recently, the state of California was home to the nation’s largest state prison system. After several decades of rapid growth, California’s prison population peaked at 173,000 in 2006, despite the fact that its prisons were designed to hold a maximum of 79,858 people. In 2011, the Supreme Court decided that prison conditions in California were tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment and required the State to bring its prison population down to 137.5 percent of design capacity by reducing the rolls by some 33,000 inmates over a two-year timeframe. To comply with the court order, California enacted a controversial law – Public Safety Realignment – which transferred responsibility for lower level felony offenders from the state correctional system to 58 county jail and probation systems. The realignment of California corrections has been described as “the biggest criminal justice experiment ever conducted in America.” How did California end up in the Supreme Court? How has Realignment been implemented in the State? Is the Realignment experiment working? Going forward, what can we learn from California? Addressing these questions, this issue of The Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science offers the first systematic, scientific analysis of the recent realignment of California’s corrections. This is the introductory chapter to the volume.

“I am Not a Feminist, but. . .”: Hegemony of a Meritocratic Ideology and the Limits of Critique Among Women in Engineering

Engineering is often described as an enduring bastion of masculine culture where women experience marginality. Using diaries from undergraduate engineering students at four universities, the authors explore women’s interpretations of their status within the profession. The authors’ findings show that women recognize their marginality, providing clear and strong criticisms of their experiences. But these criticisms remain isolated and muted; they coalesce neither into broader organizational or institutional criticisms of engineering, nor into calls for change. Instead, their criticisms are interpreted through two values central to engineering culture: meritocracy and individualism. Despite their direct experiences with sexism, respondents typically embrace these values as ideological justifications of the existing distributions of status and reward in engineering and come to view engineering’s nonmeritocratic system as meritocratic. The unquestioned presumption of meritocracy and the invisibility of its muting effects on critiques resembles not hegemonic masculinity—for these women proudly celebrate their femininity—but a hegemony of meritocratic ideology. The authors conclude that engineering education successfully turns potential critics into agents of cultural reproduction. This article contributes to ongoing debates concerning diversity in STEM professions by showing how professional culture can contribute to more general patterns of token behavior—thus identifying mechanisms of cultural reproduction that thwart institutional change.

Innovation and Reform in Courts: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Civil justice reform is on the political agenda in many nations. While the details of reform campaigns vary from country to country, certain common themes can be discerned. The authors of this essay suggest an analytic framework for the cross-cultural analysis of court reform. England, Italy, Germany, and the United States are points of reference in this discussion. The framework presented here serves as an introduction to the three more specifically focused papers that follow in this special issue.

The crisis of crisis management in the courts

Since 1960, US district courts have faced a mounting volume and complexity in their caseload and, simultaneously, a relative decline in the fiscal and orga nizational resources available to meet the rising demand. Courts are attempt ing to manage this double threat to their identity by adopting a combination of computerization and a strategy of informalism, much like other organizations in the public and private sector. But courts are unique among public sector organizations in that formal-legal rules play a constitutive role in their orga nization and procedures. Insofar as informal and technocratic strategies of cri sis management become functionally autonomous, they tend to undermine the normative premises of courts and generate a second-order problem, viz, a crisis of crisis management.