An 'Old Boys Club' Seeking Equality for Women in Law Can't Bring Change

Women in law often work late hours, a situation exacerbated by the fear of becoming a tragic news headline.

Despite calls for increased representation, women lawyers in India still struggle with bias and discrimination in a predominantly male legal profession.

(Image: The Quint/@Kamran Akhter)

As a practicing lawyer in India, I have keenly observed the urgent need for social reform within the legal profession.

While it is encouraging that the current Hon'ble Chief Justice of India (CJI) recently emphasised on the importance of increasing women's representation in the judiciary, tangible gender equity is yet to be fully realised. Similarly, even as I appreciate the call to improve the working conditions of women doctors by the CJI during the suo moto proceedings against the horrific rape case in Kolkata, more action is needed to bring about any change in the medical profession.

Now, both medical and legal professions are male dominated. That's not only because they deal with people's lives and involve long hours, but also simply because they are male dominated.

In both these professions, women are seen as fragile and emotional human beings who aren’t capable of surgeries or cross-examination of strong-headed criminals, respectively. This prejudice about women persists as an ‘unconscious bias’ in people conditioned in patriarchy.

Through this article, I explore the experiences of women lawyers in litigation, experiences where the Indian legal fraternity has consistently fallen short.

'Unspoken Bias Against Hiring Female Lawyers'

In June this year, the Hon'ble CJI called for increased representation of women in the judiciary and better infrastructural facilities for women lawyers and judges in courts and offices. However, we have not heard of any specific initiatives addressing the challenges faced by women lawyers working in private offices, especially first-generation women lawyers or women from less privileged backgrounds.

While first-generation male lawyers may face some challenges, our gender adds an extra layer of complexity to these issues – our gender is the cherry on the cake no one wants to have in litigation.

In India, most litigating lawyers operate privately in law offices, chambers, etc., which fall under the unorganised sector. On the other hand, some lawyers work in law firms that belong to the organised sector.

These firms are legally obligated to adhere to the legal regulations, including non-discriminatory hiring practices, equal pay, and the establishment of POSH (Prevention of Sexual Harassment) committees. Despite these regulations, many law firms still exhibit a highly skewed male-dominated work culture.

However, the primary concern of an unregulated male-dominated work culture remains in the unorganised sector, where most lawyers practice because those in charge have significant discretion over remuneration, hiring, and termination decisions in these law offices.

Based on my experiences working in several private law office, first-generation women lawyers, or those from less privileged circumstances, encounter substantial barriers while entering and navigating the legal profession.

There is an unspoken bias against hiring women lawyers, and even when they are employed and compensated fairly compared to their male counterparts, the prevailing work culture often impedes their long-term success in those environments.

'Misogynistic Comments Indicate Perpetuation of Rape Culture in Law Offices'

The situation is further compounded by the prevalence of senior lawyers and judges making misogynistic and transphobic comments, which perpetuates this culture within private spheres among young lawyers.

As a woman lawyer, I have encountered disrespect from my male colleagues in the office, who’ve made some highly unacceptable comments from time to time.

For example, a well-qualified male colleague once made a disparaging remark about a prosecutrix in a rape case, and I quote — "Isko kaun rape karega, ye toh flat TV hai ('Who will rape her, she is a flat TV')".

While this was a highly offensive remark, none of the four male colleagues in the room called him out because no one wanted to pick a fight with a senior colleague. Similarly, I refrained from addressing the issue, believing that it was not solely my responsibility to correct the behaviour of an adult male.

Hearing such remarks on a regular basis, as one of the very few women who chose to be in the litigation profession, takes a toll on our mental well-being as professionals, too.

We work 15-16 hours each day surrounded by such individuals, and these casual misogynistic comments indicate the perpetuation of rape culture within law offices, which will persist unless these lawyers are held accountable for their treatment of other genders around them.

'Instead of Reforming Work Culture, Senior Lawyers Unjustly Hire Only Male Associates'

Women in the legal profession confront the fundamental issue of working late hours, a situation exacerbated by the fear of becoming a tragic news headline due to the late work hours.

Instead of empowering women lawyers with women-friendly working hours or facilitating online/hybrid services for late work hours or safe travel arrangements, most senior lawyers (including designated senior advocates) unjustly hire only male legal associates.

This practice obstructs the possibility of reforming their work culture to be more inclusive, alienating women from litigation, and pushing them toward corporate law or the judiciary as their only viable career options.

It would be short-sighted for the legal community to believe that simply an increase in the number of women judges without any research and awareness programmes within the collegium and without any support for the women lawyers in the legal profession will rectify the issue of gender disparity; especially when the majority of women in the legal profession work as lawyers in the unorganised sector, making it challenging for them first to secure employment, demonstrate their competence to work as effectively as their male peers, and return home safe and unharmed each night.

'A More Sensitised Male Legal Fraternity Can Make Real Difference'

In fact, instead of screening movies on the court campus, the Bar could organise gender-sensitisation programmes for lawyers in the courts to improve the culture of law offices and help highly misogynistic, patriarchal advocates unlearn their years of conditioning.

This unlearning of the deeply conditioned misogyny in lawyers will undoubtedly make way for women lawyers to stay and grow in the legal profession. Moreover, to improve gender diversity in the judiciary and the Bar, gender-specific research and recommendations are necessary within the collegium when appointing women judges, and when the judges appoint senior advocates.

It is all the more important to point out that after 77 years of Independence, none of the women appointed as senior advocates or judges of the Supreme Court belongs to the SC/ST community.

Unfortunately, intersectional representation of women lacks consideration even in the speeches of the Hon’ble CJI. This is why, since time immemorial, the ableist approach of law offices and the courts has discouraged women and kept them out of litigation practice.

Therefore, a more inclusive and sensitised male legal fraternity can make a real difference in genuinely improving women's representation and growth in the legal profession so that we women can also have numerous role models to look up to.

(The author is an advocate in the Delhi High Court and an LLM candidate at London School of Economics. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)