The Family Friendliness That Wasn’t: Access, but Not Progress, for Women in the Czech Judiciary

Despite the fact that three-fifths of Czech judges are women, it would be a mistake to consider the Czech judiciary “feminized”: it is characterized by vertical gender segregation and a slow “defeminization” in positions of power and influence. The key to understanding both women’s presence overall and absence at the top is the gendered division of labor, especially in the home. The same reason why many women enter the judiciary—better reconciliation of private and professional lives than in other legal professions—is the reason why women do not progress—their “second shift” at home prevents them from ascending the career ladder.

Prosecutors’ Habituation of Emotion Management in Swedish Courts

The article examines the professional emotion management underlying prosecutors’ work in court. Building on interviews and observations of forty-one prosecutors at five offices in Sweden, and drawing on sociological theories of emotion habituation, we analyze the emotion management necessary to perform frontstage (in court) professionalism as a prosecutor. We divide our analysis into three key dimensions of habituation: the feeling rules of confidence and mastering anxiety associated with an independent performance; the feeling rules of emotional distance and a balanced display associated with performing the objective party; and the playful and strategic improvisation of feeling rules associated with relaxed emotional presence. The routinization of feeling rules and the gradual backgrounding of related emotion management leads to habituation. Our findings enhance understanding of emotion management skills as part of tacit knowledge conveyed in the legal professions where emotion-talk and emotional reflexivity are little acknowledged. The article also contributes to the largely US-dominated previous research by adding a civil law perspective on prosecutorial emotion management.

Use of Wikipedia by Legal Scholars: Implications for Information Literacy

<p>This study examines the use of Wikipedia across a broad range of judicial and administrative bodies within New Zealand. The primary focus of the study is the use of Wikipedia in courts (and other legally influential bodies) and how this affects the way that information literacy is taught in legal studies, particularly with regards to Wikipedia and other similar internet-based resources. A secondary focus for this study is the use of Wikipedia in other legal documents, such as those issued by tribunals and regulatory bodies. There is also some discussion about best practices regarding the use of Wikipedia by those in legal professions, such as judges, solicitors, and barristers.</p>

Use of Wikipedia by Legal Scholars: Implications for Information Literacy

<p>This study examines the use of Wikipedia across a broad range of judicial and administrative bodies within New Zealand. The primary focus of the study is the use of Wikipedia in courts (and other legally influential bodies) and how this affects the way that information literacy is taught in legal studies, particularly with regards to Wikipedia and other similar internet-based resources. A secondary focus for this study is the use of Wikipedia in other legal documents, such as those issued by tribunals and regulatory bodies. There is also some discussion about best practices regarding the use of Wikipedia by those in legal professions, such as judges, solicitors, and barristers.</p>

V. S. Solovyov and L. N. Tolstoy: Two Opinions on Law and Morality

The paper deals with the problem of the correlation of law and morality as the most important social regulators in the interpretation of two outstanding thinkers of pre-revolutionary Russia, namely the religious philosopher V. S. Solovyov and the writer L. N. Tolstoy. In a sense, both were “iconic thinkers”, had a huge army of admirers, as well as critics. Of interest is the fact that L. N. Tolstoy studied at the Faculty of Law of the Kazan Imperial University, but did not graduate from it. It was during his student years that he formed an extremely negative view of law and legal professions. In this regard, Tolstoy can safely be counted among the representatives of the so-called theoretical legal nihilism, whose supporters sought to justify the denial of the value of law by conceptual argumentation in a way they understood it. V. S. Solovyov, on the contrary, treated the law more positively than negatively. However, he qualified the law as a “minimum of morality”, and considered the state to be “organized pity”. Nevertheless, in the professional academic environment, V. S. Solovyov enjoyed the reputation of a person who was deeply versed in law and understood its role in a state-organized society.The paper notes some similarity of the theoretical views of V. S. Solovyov and L. N. Tolstoy. Law and morality occupy an important place in their ideological constructions. It seems that their ideas to some extent have not lost their significance today

10. The Legal Professions

This chapter explains what the legal professions are, what they do, and how to qualify as a member of the professions. It examines the rules governing practice as a member of the professions and, in particular, the issue of ethical behaviour. There are three principal branches to the legal profession in England and Wales. The first consists of barristers, the second of solicitors, and the third of chartered legal executives. The routes to qualification vary for each of the branches, but broadly speaking all involve an academic stage and work-based training. When considering the current routes to qualification for each of the branches of the profession, the chapter also explores potential qualification reforms, in particular those proposed by the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority with the introduction of the Solicitors’ Qualifying Exam (SQE). Diversity within each branch of the profession is also explored in relation to gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic backgrounds.

Solicitors’ rights of audience, competence and regulation: a responsibility rights approach

This paper takes as its context the decision of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in England and Wales to abandon before the event regulation of lower court trial advocacy. Although solicitors will continue to acquire rights of audience on qualification, they will no longer be required to undertake training or assessment in witness examination, by contrast with other, competing, legal professions. Their opportunities to acquire competence outside the classroom will remain limited. The paper first explores this context and its implications for the three key factors of rights to perform, competence and regulatory accountability. The current regulatory system is then displayed as a Hohfeldian network of rights and duties held in tension between stakeholders intended to inhibit the incompetent exercise of rights to conduct trial advocacy. The SRA's proposal weakens this tension field and threatens the competitive position of solicitors. The paper therefore finally offers a radical alternative reconceptualisation of rights of audience in terms of Waldron's ‘responsibility rights’ as a solution, albeit one with significant implications for the individual advocate. This model, applicable globally, is closer to notions of societal good and professionalism than to those of the competitive market, whilst inhibiting incompetent performance and remediating the SRA's approach.

Judicatura, abogacía e igualdad de género

Las profesiones jurídicas han estado históricamente vedadas a las mujeres debido al prejuicio de su incapacidad para ocupar el espacio público. Por ello, no ha habido mujeres juristas en ningún momento hasta el Siglo XIX, en que tímidamente empezaron las primeras mujeres a estudiar la Carrera de Derecho. Aunque aún hasta bien entrado el Siglo XX se mantuvieron vigentes prohibiciones que las impedían ser Juezas, Fiscalas o Notarias. Eliminadas esas prohibiciones, las mujeres han pasado a integrar las profesiones jurídicas de manera masiva. Pero el prejuicio que las expulsaba de la vida pública, y que las ataba al hogar, sigue vigente, lo que ha determinado que, aún hoy día, existan numerosos déficits de igualdad: escasas mujeres en las cúpulas judiciales, situaciones de menosprecio, brecha salarial. Legal professions have historically been banned from women due to the prejudice of their inability to occupy public space. Therefore, there have been no women jurists at any time until the 19th century, when the first women timidly began to study the Law Degree. Although even well into the 20th century, prohibitions remained that prevented them from being Judges, Prosecutors or Notaries. With these prohibitions removed, women have begun to integrate legal professions in a massive way. But the prejudice that expelled them from public life, and that bound them to the home, is still in force, which has determined that, even today, there are numerous equality deficits: few women in judicial high courts, harassment, wage gap.

Who Is Responsible for Abortions?

The falling birth rate in 1948 became a political problem, and all demographic data were made secret thereafter. V. N. Starovskii, the head of the Central Statistical Administration, suggested that the rising number of illegal abortions was the primary cause of the declining birth rate. Saddled with this allegation, the medical and legal professions undertook comprehensive study of both legal and illegal abortion, including a survey of illegal abortion, compiled through interviews with hundreds of women hospitalized after botched abortions. The results led to a shift in reformist focus from prosecution to prevention, and a new understanding of the causes underlying Soviet women’s reproductive decisions.