From Above the Law authored b
“Retired federal judge Shira Scheindlin recently wrote an editorial in the New York Times titled, “Female Lawyers Can Talk, Too.” It got me thinking. When it comes to representing poor clients, people for whom the court appoints attorneys — I see as many female attorneys as men. They either work for one of the big state or federal public defender organizations or are appointed as one-offs by the state or federal government. However, when it comes to getting hired to represent a defendant who has money to pay for an attorney — the men get the lion’s share of the work.
This is as true today as when I started working as a criminal defense attorney two decades ago. The women get the court-appointed work, the men get retained.
Although the courts in general have become more women-friendly in recent years — there are many more women prosecutors, judges, court officers, and public-defense counsel than when I started — the number of women in private practice, either hired by law firms or working as solo practitioners, has not significantly changed since the early 1990s at least in terms of their representation as lead counsel in trial work.”
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