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Portia Goes to Parliament: Women and Their Admission to Membership in the English Legal Profession

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Portia Goes to Parliament: Women and Their Admission to Membership in the English Legal Profession Louisiana State University Law Center LSU Law Digital Commons Journal Articles Faculty Scholarship 1998 Portia Goes to Parliament: Women and Their Admission to Membership in the English Legal Profession Christine Corcos Louisiana State University Law Center, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/faculty_scholarship Part of the Law Commons Repository Citation Corcos, Christine, "Portia Goes to Parliament: Women and Their Admission to Membership in the English Legal Profession" (1998). Journal Articles. 240. https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/faculty_scholarship/240 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at LSU Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal Articles by an authorized administrator of LSU Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. PORTIA GOES TOP ARLIAMENT: WOMEN AND THEIRADMISSION TO MEMBERSHIPIN THE ENGLISH LEGALPROFESSION CHRISTINEALICE CoRcos· I. INTRODUCTION........... ................................................................. 309 II. THE STRUCTURE OF THE ENGLISH LEGAL PROFESSION IN THE LATE NINETEENTH AND EARLY'fwENTIETH C ENTURIES•..•.•..••. 315 A. In General ................. ..... .................... ..................... ............. 315 B. ........... Other Countries of the Union ......... ..... ..... ... ............. 316 1. Scotland............ .................. ... ......................................... 316 2. Ireland ............................................................................ 321 ID. SIMil..ARITIESWITH THE PROFESSIONIN OTHERCOUNTRIES ..•.•. 322 A. Other Countries of the Commonwealth ................................ 323 1. Canada ......................... ............................... ...... ............ .. 323 2. Australia.............. ........... ....... .......................... ............... 324 3. New Zealand .................... ... ........................................ ... 326 4. South Africa. .. .......... .. .. .. ................... .. .......... ................. 326 B. France ....................... ........... ...................................... ........... 326 C. Belgium ............... .................................................................. 333 • Associate Professor of Law, Louisiana State University Law Center. B.A., M.A., Michigan State University, 1975; J.D., Case Western Reserve Law School, 1990. I wish to thank Charlotte Melius, Head of Public Services of LSU Law Center Library and her staff; LawLibrary of Louisiana staff; Loyola University of New Orleans Law Library staff; Southern Illinois University Law Library staff; and Tulane University Law Library staff for their tireless assistance in locating materials for this article. Madeline Hebert of the LSU Law Library found wonderful materials in various histories of the period. Jill Kuswa (LSU Law, 1998) contributed valuable research and suggestions and Cherie Givens carefully proofread the final text Dr. Ann Sumner Holmes, associate dean, LSU Honors College, was encouraging and enthusiastic. Many thanks also to John Church, Associate Professor, LSU Law Center, who provided the short title by which we could refer to this piece ("the men are pigs article") and my other colleagues who provided many useful insights into male bonding behavior and habits of mind. 307 [Vol. 75:2 308 DENVER UNIVERSITYLAW REVIEW IV. THE CONTROVERSY OVER PROPOSED LEGISLATION .................. 333 A. Early Attempts by Women to Gain Admission to the English Bar ............ ........ ..... .......................................... ........ 336 1. Private Attempts ....... ... ....................... ............................ 336 2. Early Attempts in Parliament............ ............ .. ............. .. 337 a. Support for Women Attorneys in the Profession...... 337 b. Objections Based on Custom and Existing Legislation ... ... ...... ......................... ......................... 340 B. Arguments For and Against the Admission of Women to the Profession ...... ...... ...................................................... 348 C. Existing Legislation and Its lnterpretation ........................... 361 1. Attempts to Obtain Admission Through the Courts....... 361 2. Bebb v. Law Society: The Trial Court Case ................... 362 3. The Court of Appeals Case ......... ................................... 368 v. CHANGES INTHE PoLmCAL AND SOCIALENVIRONMENT ......... 379 A. Attempts to Legislate Admission ........ ................................... 383 1. The Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act of 1918 ..................................................................... 384 2. The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919 .......... 385 3. Barristers and Solicitors (Qualification of Women) Bill .................................. ......... ...... .................. 386 B. The Admission of Women to the Legal Profession ............... 393 VI. CONTINUING DEBATE ........ ... ............................................ ........... 395 A. Women as Members of Circuit and Session Messes ............. 395 B. The Issue ofWomen's Dress in Court ................................... 399 VII . THE ENTRY OF WOMEN INTO PROFESSIONS RELATED TO LAW. 404 . A. The Judicial Branch .............................................................. 405 B. Juries .................................................................................... 406 C. The Legislature ................... ................. ....................... � ......... 406 1. House of Commons .................................. ...................... 406 2. House of Lords ............. .................................................. 409 . D. ThePolice ................ .. .................................... ..................... 412 VIII. CONCLUSION ............................................................................... 413 1998) PORTIA GOES TO PARLIAMENT 309 This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood; The words expressly are "a pound offlesh:" Then take thy bond, take thou thy pound offlesh; But, in the cutting it, ifthou dost shed One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate Unto the state ofVenice.1 I. INTRODUCTION By pleading for the literal application of the law in The Merchant of Venice, Portia hopes to avoid the bloody result of a bad bargain. In pointing out that Shylock is entitled to "a pound of flesh," but nothing more, she identifies the justice that an advocate requests and a judge grants in applying the law, if the parties are willing to accept the foresee­ able result of that application. Perhaps believing that with admission would come acceptance,2 the would-be Portias of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries pied for the literal application of the laws that would have allowed them to appear as attorneys in the English courts.3 While their own lawyers desired the literal outcome of the applicable statutes, the judges and the official representatives of the organized bar did not.4 Their reluctance to accept the legitimate outcome of properly drawn and enacted legislation allowed them to formulate a legal theory that successfully prevented the admission of women to the English legal profession for nearly fifty years after Parliament decreed that the status quo should be changed.s The character of Portia in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice is one of the most familiar figures to be classed as a "woman lawyer" in literature or in life, even though she is not a member of the bar.6 The ref­ erence is so common that Horace Rumpole' s dubbing of Phyllida Trant Erskine-Browne as "the Portia of our Chambers" is immediately under­ standable to English-speaking readers.1 Yet, any recognition of the right 1. Wn..UAM SHAKESPEARE, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE act 4, SC. 1, lines 307-13 (William Lyon Phelps ed., Yale University Press 1923). 2. The literature makes it clear that this was not the case. See infra notes 17, 443-64 and accompanying text. 3. See ALBIE SACHS & JOAN HOFF WILSO N, SEXISM AND THE LAW: A STUDY OF MALE BELIEFS AND LEGAL BIAS IN BRITAIN AND TifE UNITED STATES 27-33 (1978) (discussing cases where women applied for positions of law agent, barrister and solicitor in the English courts). 4. See id. 5. See id. at 40-53 (discussing the "myth of judicial neutrality" and how the fact that the judiciary was exclusively male made judicial neutrality towards women's involvement virtually a myth). 6. See SHAKESPEARE, supra note 1, act 4, sc. 1, line 170. Portia's famous scene begins here. See generally Isabel Giles, The Twentieth Century Portia, 21 CASE & COM . 353 (1914) (discussing the future of women attorneys inthe twentieth century). 7. Jmm MORTIMER, Rumpole and the Right to Silence, in RUMPOLEA LA CARTE 103, 121 (1990); see Giles, supra note 6, at 352 (providing a reproduction of an oil painting by Sir John Millais titled "Portia"); David Cuthbert, Last Call For Rumpole: Tonight's 'Mystery!' Marks the Beginning of the End for Leo McKem' s Turn as the Wiley Old Barrister of the Old Bailey, NEW 310 DENVER UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 75:2 of women to be admitted to the English legal profession �asa rarity until the late nineteenth century, after various states of the Umted �tates,' and . then the provinces of Canada,9 admitte? women. Per�ps �1s de�� y is understandable in a country whose nat10nal symbol 1s a� ht1gant. Re­ cently, contemporary women lawyers hav� becom� a su jec� of �uch 1 study, in both serious
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