Drinking and casual sexism still institutional in top firms, LSB research claims
The legal profession’s culture of ‘casual sexism’ and high levels of drinking has led women and ethnic minority solicitors to adopt special strategies to overcome institutional discrimination in law firms, researchers funded by the Legal Services Board told a conference today.
Some Asian women solicitors choose to wear western clothes to the office rather than risk looking ‘too ethnic’, and it was ‘perfectly acceptable’ for older barristers to ‘hit on’ women barristers, it was claimed.
A Muslim lawyer avoids networking with colleagues because he is ‘reluctant to go to an event which is alcohol dominated’, while a white colleague ‘joked’ to a black solicitor that, with his ethnicity, he must be a cleaner, it was also claimed.
The claims appear in Legal Services Board (LSB) research, originally published in 2010, presented today at the British Sociological Association’s annual conference in Leeds. Researchers found that one strategy adopted by women and ethnic minority lawyers was to assimilate into the ‘dominant, white, masculine’ culture, by ‘taking up the hobbies, customs and dress of the dominant work group’ or by compromising on their values and their aspirations for family life.
For white female respondents, assimilation involved minimising the visibility and impact of family life, by concealing family pictures in their offices, returning to work quickly after maternity and generally subscribing to stereotypically masculine career trajectories, or ‘managing like a man’.
One female interviewee said: ‘I did not take time off to go to school sports days. You sort of felt that if a bloke took time off to go to school sports day everybody would be saying what a good father he is.’
The conference was told that Law Society surveys have revealed that lawyers from ethnic minorities were over-represented in the legal aid sector, and were more likely to work in small high-street firms or as sole practitioners, while barristers from ethnic minorities were heavily concentrated in a few chambers, drawing much of their work from their own communities and specialising in criminal defence and immigration rather than more lucrative commercial work.
A speaker said that there was ‘extensive evidence that while overtly discriminatory practices have largely been dismantled, the top echelons of the legal profession remain not only dominated by white, upper-middle class men, but as sites of subtle institutional discrimination.’
Another strategy, the conference was told, was to reform the system, though this was only possible for those who had climbed to positions of power. Examples of reforms included campaigning to make a barristers’ chambers develop maternity support policies, changing and making more transparent partnership promotion criteria, lobbying for diversity and equal opportunities issues within professional associations, and engaging in outreach activities to mentor and recruit disadvantaged groups.
Dr Jennifer Tomlinson, University of Leeds, and Professor Daniel Muzio, University of Manchester, interviewed 32 white women, and 27 women and nine men from ethnic minorities, in firms in London, the south-east and north-east of England. Twelve were partners in solicitors firms, 29 were non-partners, 10 were trainees, seven were barristers and the 10 others were academics, executives and paralegals.
The LSB funded the research which was directed by Professor Hilary Sommerlad of Leicester University, with Professor Lisa Webley and Liz Duff of the University of Westminster.
Read the report from the research, which took place in 2010.
Comments
Why separate out Women and Ethnic Minorities?
This comment struck me in regard to the title of my post.
"one strategy adopted by women and ethnic minority lawyers was to assimilate into the ‘dominant, white, masculine’ culture, by ‘taking up the hobbies, customs and dress of the dominant work group’"
This is the same for anyone that doesn't fit neatly into the correct package. The sentence seems to imply that all white men are exactly the same. Which is frankly ridiculous. White males attempt to fit into exactly the same box as everyone else does. If you are a white male from a different socio-economic group, you do exactly the same thing as described by ethnic minorities and women, you try and fit in.
Go to a builders yard, as I have done, with a Law Degree, and watch what happens, you fit into the group, you talk about sport as if you cared, you talk about X-Factor as if you watched it. You don't discuss the latest ruling from the Court of Appeal on joint enterprise, or talk about the new toolkit the BSB has created to measure diversity in Chambers.
Attempting to fit into any peer group is a natural part of working. Pretending that this somehow disadvantages groups because of ethnicity or gender just undermines the real problems that these groups face which are dependent on their group. Just for the record, it isn't just Muslims that don't drink alcohol, as a white male I don't drink alcohol. Never stopped me attending events with alcohol, all you have to say is...sorry I am driving...everyone understands that. I don't have to explain that I am tea-total, that I don't actually want to drink alcohol.
I felt that the most important fact to come out of this piece was the finding that Ethnic minorities are concentrated in the legal aid sector, I think, if the piece had bothered to look, it would also have found that this sector was over representative of the "working class" Barristers, those that didn't go to private school or Cambridge/Oxford.
I really think such studies should widen their view as they misrepresent a problem as racial, when in reality is more often than not socio-economic.
Concealing family pictures
There should be a law against displaying mawkish family pictures in the workplace anyway. As a teetotal person with no children, I feel alienated and mistreated when I see a photo of someone's family on his/her desk, next to a bottle of whisky.
I just like legs
The 'problem' is much wider. The solution, wider still...
There must be something in the ether. Pre-empting this article and research report is a piece entitled "Women Lawyers: a pain in the head" published by the Global Legal Post ezine on Monday 9th April, wherein I highlight attitudes and behaviours such as "don't mind me, I just like legs" and high class escort girls jettisoned in to help (male) lawyers 'seal the deal' with clients.
It's more than 'casual sexism' methinks...
Best intentions as ever
Chrissie Lightfoot
The Entrepreneur Lawyer
(of the naked kind)
The legal profession’s institutional culture
Institutional discrimination in the Legal Profession and problems with fitting in for women and disadvantaged groups from the less socio-economic strata, in 21st C Britain, no wonder the BRICS countries are overtaking us!
Facts of legal life
We don't need studies to tell us that there is a pecking order in legal life, dominant culture, that men and women are not the same and competition does not take place on a level playing field.
Just to remind you about the general facts of life in the legal profession without the exceptions, tokens or taking into account the Oxbridge colleges pecking order:-
Education pecking order - schools
Top six public schools - Winchester, Westminster, Harrow etc
Lower top public schools - Charterhouse, Radley and girl school equivalents
Minor public schools for bright children and the wealthy
Grammar Schools that have become private
State Grammar Schools and minor public schools for children of average intelligence
Comprehensive schools
Education pecking order - universities
Oxbridge
Ancient Scottish Universities and elite red brick - KKL, ULC, LSE etc
Red brick lower division
Plate glass universities of the 1960s apart from those that are regarded as elite
Top new universities (former polys)
Rest of new universities
Men and women pecking order:-
Leader class
Alpha male oxbridge and top public school
Alpha male elite red brick and top public school
Beta male oxbridge and top public school
Alpha male oxbridge and grammar
Beta male elite red brick and top public school
Alpha female childless oxbridge and top public school
Alpha female childless elite red brick and top public school
Alpha female with child oxbridge and top public school
And so on..
Support leader class
Alpha male oxbridge and grammar
Alpha male elite red brick and lower top public school
Beta male oxbridge and top public school
Alpha male elite red brick and lower top public school;
Alpha female without child oxbridge and top public school
Alpha female with child oxbridge and top public school
And so on...
Static lawyer class
Mixed bag of mainly women some whom have children and
work part-time.
Non-lawyer support class
Mainly women who attended comprehensive school.
Administrative class
Mainly women who attended comprehensive school.
If it was possible to obtain the name of the school and university of every single person who works in legal services from receptionist and paralegal to supreme court judge then the facts of life in the legal profession would be proven. As this is highly improbable we will have to rely on what we think we know.
At one stage, I believe, 10 male white politicians in the present government attended just one public school, Eton. Such disproportionate representation is known in the law at the highest levels of the judiciary by another top public school.
Prospective entrants to the legal profession should learn the legal facts of life to avoid disappointment later on. The debate will go on and a few token appointments will be made but the system itself will remain in tact, rightly or wrongly.
The Peasants' Revolt had a point
This is probably very similar to the reasons why lawyers were lynched in the peasants' revolt.