Hastings Women’s Law Journal Volume 19 Article 3 Number 1 Winter 2008 1-1-2008 The uturF e of Women in the Legal Profession: Recognizing the Challenges Ahead by Reviewing Current Trends Maria Pabon Lopez Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hwlj Part of the Law and Gender Commons Recommended Citation Maria Pabon Lopez, The Future of Women in the Legal Profession: Recognizing the Challenges Ahead by Reviewing Current Trends, 19 Hastings Women's L.J. 53 (2008). Available at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hwlj/vol19/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hastings Women’s Law Journal by an authorized editor of UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. The Future of Women in the Legal Profession: Recognizing the Challenges Ahead by Reviewing Current Trends Maria Pab6n L6pez* I. INTRODUCTION: SETTING THE STAGE From an early history of women's exclusion from the legal profession - 2 which continued well into the mid-twentieth century - to present day achievements, it is current conventional wisdom that female lawyers appear to have "arrived." In other words, the presence of women in the profession has experienced a dramatic progression from exclusion to full integration into all aspects of the practice. After all, almost half of those in law school now are women 3 and nearly one-third of the lawyers in the profession are " Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law, Indianapolis, J.D.