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The Paradox of the Contented Female Lawyer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Kathleen E. Hull
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This research note calls attention to some basic but rather neglected questions about life in the legal profession: Are lawyers happy in their work? Do patterns of stratification within the profession translate into differences in work satisfaction? Does satisfaction with different components of legal work vary across employment statuses and practice contexts?

Given that job satisfaction is a highly subjective phenomenon, some sociolegal scholars may question its value as an object of social scientific inquiry. I argue, however, that to ignore the question of lawyers' happiness is a mistake. Despite their limitations, studies of lawyers' work satisfaction can be useful in several ways. First, job satisfaction can be viewed as a stratification measure, complementing more traditional measures such as income and hierarchical position. If satisfaction is unevenly distributed within the profession in some systematic way (e.g., if women are less satisfied than men or if minorities less satisfied than whites), we might interpret this uneven distribution as a form of inequality and seek to explain its causes and possible remedies.

Type
Research Notes
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 33 , Issue 3: Changing Employment Statuses in the Practice of Law , 1999 , pp. 687 - 702
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the Law and Society Association

Footnotes

Partial funding for this research was provided by grants from the American Bar Foundation and the National Science Foundation. The author wishes to thank John Heinz, Edward Laumann, Robert Nelson, Ethan Michelson, Rebecca Sandefur, and the anonymous reviewers at the Review for their helpful feedback on this work.

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