Assimilation, Choice, or Constraint? Testing Theories of Gender Differences in the Careers of Lawyers

Face and fortune: Inferences of personality from Managing Partners' faces predict their law firms' financial success

“…In addition, another seven MPs were excluded because their firms had values greater than three standard deviations from the mean on at least one of the following: revenues, profit margin, PPP, profitability index, or number of lawyers working in the firm. Finally, four of the MPs were women and, given that previous research has indicated that men and women are often perceived very differently in terms of trait ratings (e.g., Hess, Adams, & Kleck, 2005) and that women are disadvantaged for success in law firms (Hull & Nelson, 2000;Kay & Hagan, 1999), we excluded these targets from analysis. Thus, the final sample for analysis consisted of 77 MPs.…”

Unequal on top: Gender profiling and the income gap among high earner male and female professionals

“…Women encounter ''glass ceilings'' that deprive them from promotion to positions that carry greater compensation (Bertrand and Hallock, 2001;Gorman and Kmec, 2009;Hull and Nelson, 2000). Women are blocked from networks inside firms that facilitate access to lucrative job opportunities (Burt, 1998;Hutlin and Szulkin, 1999;Shih, 2006), and are more likely to face biases that sort them into jobs that have short internal career ladders, little or no training, and diminished overall earnings potential (Bielby and Baron, 1986;Fernandez and Mors, 2008;Petersen and Morgan, 1995;Reskin, 1993).…”

Lingering Nuances: Gendered Career Motivations and Aspirations of First-Year Law Students

“…Because women occupy such a small number of the partner positions, which command the most money and prestige among lawyers, they are stuck in an unequal position amongst firm lawyers and lack adequate support networks to reach the top (Hull and Nelson 2000). Even if women do make partner, they are still held to different standards and face many difficulties not in existence for their male counterparts.…”

“…It can be inferred by following this theory that much of the reason rewards go to the ''more committed'' male lawyers is because it is assumed that they choose to invest most heavily in their careers. Similarly, cultural feminist theory suggests that women will make different choices in the labor market than that of men, based on innate differences or differences in socialization related to ultimate goals or responsibilities (Hull and Nelson 2000). Thus, women and men are rewarded in the workplace for different reasons and for displaying different characteristics.…”

“…More specifically, many of the theories popularly used to examine women's entrance 230 C. Carroll and A. Brayfield into male-dominated fields discuss the difference between men's and women's career and family obligations or perceptions of this potential conflict. For example, gender stratification theory, human capital theory, and cultural feminist theory all address the female-specific problems associated with perceptions of or actually balancing work and family (Hull and Nelson 2000). Further, it is impossible for any discussion of organizations, including law firms, whether based on structural or interactionist thought, to ignore the gendered processes inherent in organizations and the powerful ''place'' for the bodies of men and the subordinated ''place'' for the reproductive bodies of women (Acker 1990, p. 154).…”