Joan Brockman

Barriers to Gender Equality in the Canadian Legal Establishment

In this paper we trace the historical exclusion of women from the legal profession in Canada. We examine women’s efforts to gain entry to law practice and their progress through the last century. The battle to gain entry to this exclusive profession took place on many fronts: in the courts, government legislature, public debate and media, and behind the closed doors of the law societies. After formal barriers to entry were dismantled, women continued to confront formidable barriers through overt and subtler forms of discrimination and exclusion. Today’s legal profession in Canada is a contested one. Women have succeeded with large enrolments in law schools and growing representation in the profession. However, women remain on the margins of power and privilege in law practice. Our analysis of contemporary official data on the Canadian legal profession demonstrates that women are under-represented in private practice, have reduced chances for promotion, and are excluded from higher echelons of authority, remuneration, and status in the profession. Yet, the contemporary picture of the legal profession also reveals that women are having an important impact on the profession of law in Canada by introducing policy reforms aimed at creating a more humane legal profession.

“Resistance by the Club” to the Feminization of the Legal Profession *

This paper examines the growth in numbers of lawyers in Canada and British Columbia, and the attrition rates of members from the Law Society of British Columbia. It then reports on the results of a survey of former members of the Law Society of British Columbia which examines the reasons why these former members did not renew their memberships in the Law Society, their perceptions of gender bias in the legal profession in British Columbia, their suggestions for improving the legal profession, and some of the implications of such recommendations.

An Update on Self-Regulation in the Legal Profession (1989–2000): Funnel In and Funnel Out.

This paper analyzes the processing of complaints against lawyers through the Law Society of British Columbias disciplinary system between 1989 and 2000. It also examines changes to the context within which the disciplinary system operates, between the time period of an earlier study (1978–1988) and this study. Cases processed by the disciplinary system are discussed in light of a model that examines the process from the perspective of how cases are brought into the system (funnel in), and reduced in number by the disciplinary system (funnel out). Finally, the future of self-regulation is assessed in light of some of the renegotiations and readjustments to professional self-regulation that have taken place elsewhere.

Attitudes Toward Delinquency by Court Officials: Comparisons Between North America and Europe

When attitude questionnaires are translated from one language to another it is difficult to interpret responses for the purpose of cross cultural comparisons. This study attempts to compare attitudes of juvenile court officials in Vienna and Boston by rank ordering equivalent roles along various attitudinal dimensions. In Vienna, judges, police, state attorneys, and lay judges usually have a more “conservative” outlook than probation officers and youth officials, but these attitudes do not fall neatly into a punitive-permissive continuum. In both Vienna and Boston the structure of the system and the way officials perform their roles are related to attitudes, but it is not clear whether the performance of certain roles leads to the adoption of particular attitudes or holding certain attitudes leads to a search for specific roles.

A Difference without a Distinction? A Comment on “Do Women Judges Make a Difference? An Analysis of Appeal Court Data” by Peter McCormick and Twyla Job.

This comment is approached with some trepidation. My eclectic background does not allow me the peace of mind I might have if I had arrived at this point in my life with a more connected or cohesive history. I therefore approach this review from at least three perspectives: ( i ) as a sociologist with training in traditional social science research methods and methodology, ( ii ) as a lawyer with some experience prosecuting in provincial court, and ( iii ) as an academic who has recently dabbled in feminist legal methods and methodology, in law and the social sciences. The first two perspectives require assumptions about social science research and law; the third perspective challenges, questions, and debunks many of these assumptions. Whether there can be an integration of the third with the first or the second is the subject of much debate among feminist academics in, and between, the social sciences and law. At times it is unclear which perspective is influencing my comments, and so I slide from one to another and back again.

Bar Codes: Women in the Legal Profession (review)

predation/protection ....there is no single correct way around the dilemma of difference and the logic of predation/protection. Discourse analysis, public policy making and feminist politics and activism will always have to be alert, ready to face whatever versions of these difficulties emerge, and continually creative in devising new approaches to policy that will truly advance the interests of women and children—and thus of all citizens.” (p. 244). This is a book that is a worthwhile read for anyone committed to a critical genderbased analysis of laws and public policy. It demonstrates how notions of subjectivity shape policy formulation, and invites scholars and policy makers to envision how subjectivity can be reconceived through feminist approaches to incorporate notions of interdependence and embodiment, of the different complexities of differently situated women and of the importance of engaging in the political conversations that shape the world we live in.