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February 04, 2022 CWP News

CWP Releases How Unappealing: An Empirical Analysis of the Gender Gap Among Appellate Attorneys

How Unappealing: An Empirical Analysis of the Gender Gap Among Appellate Attorneys, a new report published by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession in December 2021, reveals gender disparity among lawyers who argue before federal appellate courts. The report analyzes the number of men and women who appeared before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in two years a decade apart—2009 and 2019—and reveals that men arguing before the court outnumbered women nearly three to one. The report also examines who those women lawyers were—what kinds of cases they worked on, who they represented, and where they worked. The report can be found at https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/women/how-unappealing-f_1.pdf.

Among the findings:

  • Lawyers who are men were nearly three times more likely to argue before the Seventh Circuit than lawyers who are women.
  • Lawyers who are women argued more often in criminal cases and other cases that involved the government—like immigration and habeas cases—and at lower rates in civil cases.
  • Lawyers who are women were considerably less likely to argue the types of cases that normally involve business matters—such as antitrust/securities, contracts, insurance, and consumer credit cases.

The report also includes a roadmap for law schools, law firms, clients, and courts by recommending suggestions for change aimed at increasing the number of women lawyers arguing at the appellate level.

The report is authored by Judge Amy J. St. Eve of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and Jamie B. Luguri, litigation associate at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP in Los Angeles.

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