This group´s session in Berlin will explore new aspects of female participation in the legal profession, mainly women´s career prospects and the overall impact gender has on the structure of the profession. This sub-group of the Legal Profession Group first came together at the joint meeting of the LSA and the RCSL in Amsterdam in 1991 and has held many sessions in socio-legal conferences since.

It explores all aspects of the participation of women in legal professions across different cultures and states, the meanings such participation has on legal institutions and the law and the working conditions and careers of women lawyers in a male professional environment. In recent years it has extended its scope of work on questions of masculinities as well as gender mainstreaming and equal opportunities in the professions.

It is linked to an International Research Collaborative “Gender and Judging” of the LSA which had its first sessions at the LSA Conference in Baltimore 2006.

The work of the group has resulted so far in two major publications Schultz, Ulrike and Gisela Shaw, eds.: Women in the World´s Legal Professions. Oxford: Hart 2003

Schultz, Ulrike and Gisela Shaw, eds.: Special Issue on Women in the Legal Profession of the International Journal of the Legal Profession, July 2003

and several articles published individually in different socio-legal journals.

For contact and further information:

Ulrike.Schultz@FernUni-Hagen.de