Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Persistent SCOTUS Gender Gap

The NYT has Adam Liptak's The Persistent Gender Gap at the Supreme Court Lectern

  • In the term that ended in June, just 18 percent of arguments were presented by women, according to data compiled by Kimberly Strawbridge Robinson of Bloomberg Law.
  • A year before, the figure was 13 percent. Over the past decade, Ms. Robinson found, the percentage of female lawyers presenting arguments at the court ranged from 12 to 22 percent.
  • Lisa S. Blatt, a lawyer with Williams & Connolly who has argued more Supreme Court cases than any other woman, echoed the point in a 2010 article in The Green Bag, a legal journal. “With very limited exceptions,” she wrote, “the women I see arguing before the court are public interest lawyers, public defenders representing the criminally convicted or government lawyers. Translation: Women are doing the same work but for less pay.”