Joyce S. Sterling

The Differential Valuation of Women's Work: A New Look at the Gender Gap in Lawyers' Incomes

This article seeks to identify the mechanisms underlying the gender wage gap among new lawyers. Relying on nationally representative data to examine the salaries of lawyers working fulltime in private practice, we find a gender gap of about 5 percent. Identifying four mechanisms – work profiles, opportunity paths and structures, credentials, and legal markets – we first estimate how much of the gap stems from the differential valuation of womens endowments; second, we estimate the effects of different endowments for men and women; and third we assess both these possibilities. The analyses indicate that none of these mechanisms can fully account for the gender gap. Experimental studies that indicate womens work is less valued and rewarded than mens suggest new directions for research on gendered compensation.

Weber's Analysis of Legal Rationalization: A Critique and Constructive Modification

Max Webers identification of increased rationalization as a master process of change included extensive discussion of legal systems. A cross-classification of rational/irrational and formal/substantive rationality makes some valid analytical distinctions, but neglects a source of legitimate authority for a formally-rational legal system and thus a determination of the goals and values toward which rules are oriented. It also neglects “instrumental” rationality, which Weber recognized in other contexts. A modification of Webers analytical scheme is proposed, not merely to improve the accuracy of classification of legal orders but more importantly to permit empirical analysis of their dynamics.