Cultural Capital, Gender, and the Structural Transformation of Legal Practice

In this article we clarify and modify Marxian and postindustrial predictions about the structural transformation of the legal profession, especially as they relate to gender differences in the law firm. In doing so, we utilize the concept of cultural capital and highlight the changing gender stratification of legal practice. We find that there is a growing centralization and concentration of cultural capital in law firms, so that both men and women are losing their proportionate shares of partnership positions in the profession, but with women losing more than men. The greatest growth in the profession has been at the middle and lower levels of larger firms, and women are especially likely to be represented in these locations. Women experience their worst partnership prospects in smaller firms, which suggests that male-dominated smaller firms are especially resistant to modifying the work roles assumed by men and women in the profession. We conclude that gender stratification is an important part of the structural transformation of legal practice.