Petticoats and Top Hats: The Presence of Female Justices and Gender Norms at the U.S. Supreme Court
Additional Funding Sources
The project described was supported by the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program through the U.S. Department of Education under Award No. P217A170273.
Presentation Date
7-2018
Abstract
While the federal bench is now the most diverse in history, women remain underrepresented at the Supreme Court Bar and are less successful than their male colleagues. Since the justices draw heavily on attorneys’ arguments and briefs in constructing their opinions, this potentially creates a situation where the unique perspective of women is lost despite the diversity of the Bench. However, it is possible that increased diversity on the Bench can translate into greater success for female attorneys since working closely with women often changes perceptions of professional competence. Drawing on the literatures on judicial diversity and attorney gender, we explore how the number of female justices on the Bench determines the success of female attorneys during oral arguments by using a novel data set of all orally argued cases from 1968 to 2016. We expect to find female attorneys fare better as the Bench becomes more diverse. These findings have important normative implications for future judicial nominations. This is the first stage of a larger project on gender and judicial decision-making.
Petticoats and Top Hats: The Presence of Female Justices and Gender Norms at the U.S. Supreme Court
While the federal bench is now the most diverse in history, women remain underrepresented at the Supreme Court Bar and are less successful than their male colleagues. Since the justices draw heavily on attorneys’ arguments and briefs in constructing their opinions, this potentially creates a situation where the unique perspective of women is lost despite the diversity of the Bench. However, it is possible that increased diversity on the Bench can translate into greater success for female attorneys since working closely with women often changes perceptions of professional competence. Drawing on the literatures on judicial diversity and attorney gender, we explore how the number of female justices on the Bench determines the success of female attorneys during oral arguments by using a novel data set of all orally argued cases from 1968 to 2016. We expect to find female attorneys fare better as the Bench becomes more diverse. These findings have important normative implications for future judicial nominations. This is the first stage of a larger project on gender and judicial decision-making.
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