GENDER, LEGAL-EDUCATION, AND LEGAL CAREERS

Much of the literature on the careers of women generally-as well as the smaller literature on the experiences of women in legal education and legal practice-supposes that women will follow different paths and have different experiences than men, and that this is and will be true because they are women. Some commentators on the relation between gender and the experience of legal professionals believe that women have distinctive modes of cognition or value orientations that shape their experience in the workplace, while others believe that social and cultural assumptions (held not only by employers but often by women themselves) are the main influence. This article reports the results of an empirical investigation of these common assumptions.