Stockmeyer on Trailblazing Women Chief Justices @WMUcooleylaw

Norman Otto Stockmeyer, Western Michigan University Cooley Law School, has published Trailblazing Women Chief Justices, at The Mentor, Spring 2019, at 4. Here is the abstract.

Nearly 60 women have achieved the position of Chief Justice of a state Supreme Court in the past 50+ years. Here are brief profiles of a few who were of particular significance as trailblazers.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Quinn on Judge Jean Hortense Norris, New York City, 1912-1955 @maecquinn

Mae C. Quinn, University of Florida College of Law, has published Fallen Woman (Re)framed: Judge Jean Hortense Norris, New York City - 1912-1955 at 67 U. Kan. L. Rev. 451 (2019). Here is the abstract.

This Article seeks to surface and understand more than what is already known about Jean Hortense Norris as a lawyer, jurist, and feminist legal realist—as well as a woman for whom sex very much became part of her professional persona and work. This article analyzes the lack of legal protections provided to Norris and troubling nature of her removal from the bench given the evidence presented and standards applied. Finally, this Article seeks to provide further context for Jean Norris’s alleged misconduct charges to suggest that as a woman who dared to blur gender boundaries, embrace her professional power, and offer a unique vision of the “fairer sex,” she was held to a different standard than her male peers and made to pay the price with her career. In these ways, this Article provides a more complete picture of Jean Norris beyond a shamed and disrobed judge. And it begins to move Judge Norris out of legal history’s margins so that she may be remembered as more than mere mugshot in the American imagination.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Thornton and Roberts on Women Judges, Private Lives: (In)Visibilities in Fact and Fiction @ANU_Law

Margaret Thornton and Heather Roberts, both of ANU College of Law, have published Women Judges, Private Lives: (In)Visibilities in Fact and Fiction at 40 University of New South Wales Law Journal 761 (2018). Here is the abstract.

Once unseen, women are now visible in increasing proportions on the bench in common law courts, although this reality has generally not percolated into fictional worlds, where ‘the judge’ is invariably male. Fiona, cast by Ian McEwan as the protagonist, in The Children Act, is a notable exception. In the novel, McEwan directs our gaze beyond the traditional separation of judicial identity into public/private (visible/invisible) facets of life and raises questions regarding the impact of life on law, and law on life. This article draws on McEwan’s work to illuminate a study of how judicial swearing-in ceremonies tell the stories of Australian women judges. At first glance, this may seem an unusual pairing: The Children Act is an international best-selling work of fiction whereas the official records of court ceremonial sittings are a somewhat obscure body of work largely overlooked by scholars. However, the speeches made in welcome in open court on these occasions by members of the legal profession and by the new judge in reply, offer glimpses of the attributes of women judges not discernible in formal judgments. These ‘minor jurisprudences’ challenge the familiar gendered stereotypes found in the sovereign body of law.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Thornton and Roberts on Women Judges, Private Lives: (In)Visibilities in Fact and Fiction @ANU_Law @hj_roberts_ @GenderANU

Margaret Thornton and Heather Roberts, both of the Australian National University College of Law, have published Women Judges, Private Lives: (In)Visibilities in Fact and Fiction at 40 University of New South Wales Law Journal 761 (2017). Here is the abstract.

Once unseen, women are now visible in increasing proportions on the bench in common law courts, although this reality has generally not percolated into fictional worlds, where ‘the judge’ is invariably male. Fiona, cast by Ian McEwan as the protagonist, in The Children Act, is a notable exception. In the novel, McEwan directs our gaze beyond the traditional separation of judicial identity into public/private (visible/invisible) facets of life and raises questions regarding the impact of life on law, and law on life. This article draws on McEwan’s work to illuminate a study of how judicial swearing-in ceremonies tell the stories of Australian women judges. At first glance, this may seem an unusual pairing: The Children Act is an international best-selling work of fiction whereas the official records of court ceremonial sittings are a somewhat obscure body of work largely overlooked by scholars. However, the speeches made in welcome in open court on these occasions by members of the legal profession and by the new judge in reply, offer glimpses of the attributes of women judges not discernible in formal judgments. These ‘minor jurisprudences’ challenge the familiar gendered stereotypes found in the sovereign body of law.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.