DOES SEX DETERMINE SPECIALTIES WITHIN THE LAW?

I just spent a lovely morning immersed in the intricacies of how a gas heating system is constructed and how a fire-cause-and-origin expert goes about the process of forming his opinion.  As I mentioned, I am very excited to be handling a fire lawsuit as this was a type of law I had hoped to become more involved in at my last firm.

And of course, this has gotten me thinking about the subject of gender when it comes to specialties within litigation.  When I first started at my former law firm, I was assigned to the Employment Litigation practice group and Legal Malpractice Defense.  Our firm (which did litigation only) was only 20% women attorneys, and all of the women attorneys did employment litigation.  I was a little concerned at first that I was being assigned to some sort of pink collar ghetto, just because it was weird that every single attorney in the group was a woman (except for the leader of the group) and it was weird that every woman in the firm was involved in Employment law.

Employment Litigation was, however, a good fit for me in terms of my skills because a lot of employment cases hinge on credibility issues, just like my criminal law cases.  Employment Litigation also involves a lot of fact investigation and informal interviewing of witnesses which was also similar to what I had done as a prosecutor.   My concerns were also somewhat alleviated by the fact that Employment Litigation is a high paying practice area and that the legal issues involved are both complex and interesting.  I also wound up doing work on construction law cases, fire and explosion cases, and some commercial litigation, but Employment Litigation always remained the area in which I was most associated.

Nonetheless, the heavy female involvement in Employment Litigation niggled at me the whole time I was at the firm.  While many of my colleagues assured me that Employment Litigation is a perfectly respectable and valuable area in which to practice, somehow it seemed more petty to be dealing with the question of whether a supervisor called his employee an “old lush” (a typical employment law scenario) than whether there are grounds for rescission of a construction contract.  On the other hand perhaps I was the one being sexist by seeing less value in a practice area dominated by women.

Another issue:  My firm may have preferred to have women attorneys represent companies accused of discrimination because female representation subtly counteracts the impression that these companies are hostile to groups that traditionally suffer discrimination. (I should note that very, very few of our cases involved allegations of sex discrimination, however.) In one particular instance, my male boss told me that he wanted me to handle a mediation in which our client was going to try to settle a claim brought by a young woman.  My boss thought the plaintiff was more likely to be receptive to my efforts to settle the case because I was myself young and female.  I didn’t really mind that tactic because -- hey, when you’re trying to achieve a particular result for your client you try to use every ethical tool at your disposal.  On reflection, however, it is troubling when one’s value to a case is explicitly tied to one’s gender.

One also questions why more women (at least in my firm) weren’t assigned to deal with more technical areas involving specialized knowledge and forensic evidence.  I certainly would have been most pleased to focus on construction litigation or fire-and-explosion cases (and my fire-and-explosion mentor even requested that I be assigned to him), but somehow that never happened.  I think there are a variety factors that may have played into my not working on those more “masculine” types of cases, so I don’t want to be too hasty in yelling sexism.  But, in all honesty, I can’t help but wonder whether sexism may have been a factor too.

I was ready, willing, and able to deal with the “harder” types of cases and expressed that to all the right people.  But somehow I was always been steered towards the “softer” types of litigation, despite my stated interests and enthusiasm.  Although obviously my experience is purely anecdotal, it leads me to question the notion that women are naturally more attracted to certain fields while men are naturally more attracted to others.  Now I haven’t fought tooth and nail to handle particular types of cases. I am not so enamored of fire-and-explosion-law that it’s breaking my heart not to be specializing in it. Nonetheless, I would have been perfectly happy to develop a specialty in this area.

NOTE:  I have not come to any firm conclusions about my experience.  Nor am I claiming that this is more than just my experience and impressions.

SECOND NOTE:  At my current firm, I practice primarily in the area of defending police departments, particularly with regard to alleged civil rights violations.  I believe I am the only woman in my state who defends these types of cases.  This type of law also dovetails nicely with my experience as a prosecutor but I think it is perceived as more "masculine" perhaps because our clients are all police officers, which is an overwhelmingly male dominated profession.   

Comments

I thought it was common knowledge that, in the big law firm context, employment litigation was considered a more "undesirable" practice area. Most firms I've worked with have had more women in these practice areas, although I don't know if this was self-selection or not. The more "respected" litigators did general commercial ltigiation (breach of contract), securities and IP litigation. Employment litigation was seen as small pototatoes.

[The Happy Feminist]

You're right that employment would definitely be seen as small potatoes compared to securities, IP or commercial litigation, which are all I am sure male-dominated areas.

In my firm, it was sort of middling because we didn't do securities or IP, and self-insured employment clients paid higher rates than insurance defense cases. Still, your comment confirms what I was thinking about employment law as possibly a pink collar ghetto. Sigh.

[Amber]

The concept of employment law as a pink collar ghetto seems confirmed by some of the reactions to the unmasking of Opinionista, who I see is on your sidebar. Many people were dismissive of her work in that field because it was not as "prestigious" as the work the readers had been led to believe she did.

[TangoMan]

On reflection, however, it is troubling when one’s value to a case is explicitly tied to one’s gender.

I'm curious about how you would apportion the gender bias here. Was your boss completely biased because he thought your gender was an essential attribute or was he simply rational in that he thought the female you were to meet would react more favorably to a woman. Was he making a judgement about you or the woman you were to meet? Was his decision loaded with bias or did he have prior evidence on which to base his decision?

[c.]

Happy,
If it makes you feel any better, in the big southern legal market I work in, labor and employment law is a big money maker and highly respected. We have several "big name" firms around town that only do labor and employment law. I think labor and employment litigators are coveted (at least on the defense side) because they save their corporate clients so much money. The only negative attitude I've seen or heard amongst attorneys is the "sell out" factor where an attorney consistently defends a corporation against nasty complaints by employees. I think that comes up for most attorneys in private practice, though, at some point or another.

[Chipmunk]

I'm sure we can find some empirical research identifying whether there is a difference in legal specialization based on gender. There has been some work done looking at differences in law school faculty by specialization (women, generally, are in the less prestigious areas). It also raises many other questions. Can it be due to differences in problem solving? Is it simply due to closed doors (the old boys network). What will happen as more women enter the law (and, less men do - look at the stats, more women are attending college than men, it should have an impact on the future shape of law schools).

[will]

"DOES SEX DETERMINE SPECIALTIES WITHIN THE LAW?"

Of course. The partner in charge of each group is more likely to want you in his section if you are having sex with him.

However, I would have to recommend against having sex with your superiors or people who report to you.

As far as your intended question, I cannot really comment because it strikes me as a "Big Firm" question.

[evil_fizz]

Chipmunk: well, what you see in medicine is that specialties which demand longer and more insane hours tends to be overwhelmingly dominated by men, such as cardiology and surgery. Specialties which provide more flexible scheduling and limited phone calls at 2 am are much more popular among women. (I have to check, but I think the vast majority of people in family medicine are women.)

I wonder if fields that are seen as more demanding and time consuming (emphasis on seen) are less likely to attract women?

[TangoMan]

I wonder if fields that are seen as more demanding and time consuming (emphasis on seen) are less likely to attract women?

Perhaps, but the "seen" is in the eye of the beholder. My wife is able to shut down a pompous ass who is high on his field by telling him that he likely avoided specializing in radiation oncology because he couldn't handle the nuclear physics that goes along with it :) In the case of radiation oncology the field is certainly intellectually demanding but the time demands are far fewer (no one needs a zap of radiation at 2 am,) and the sane lifestyle that it permitted was certainly appealing. I have no idea what the national statistics show.

[evil_fizz]

I applied for a job as a research ethics advisor for the Department of Nuclear Medicine at my extremely prestigious local university. During my interview, they asked how I felt dealing with a bunch of arrogant men (quite literally), because I was going to be the 3rd woman in the department out of 30. I said I thought I could handle it and asked why there were so few women. She said that due to the nature of the work they were doing, any woman who found out she was pregnant had to take immediate leave. I dunno if that also applies to radiation oncology, but it's possible.