UCLA Journal of Gender and Law

While implicit gender bias may attach multiple aspects of one's gender, this Article examines gender bias solely through the lens of communication and language use, which the hope that this allows for a more focused understanding of the lack of gender parity of law.

Part I of this Article reviews the studies and statistical data indicating that women in the legal profession lag behind their male counterparts in traditional indicators of success. Part II discusses the role that implicit bias may play in preventing women from achieving parity in legal employment. Part III addresses the sociolinguistic studies documenting gendered differences in communications styles as well as the feminist theories that suggest why women experience barriers to success based upon these differences. Part IV examines the social science literature documenting how women are penalized for their communication style in the workplace and courtroom. Part V charts the "linguistic minefield"—how women conform their language practices to the masculine norm and suffer the penalizing consequences of such accommodation. Finally, Part VI discusses the individual and organizational repercussions of communication bias. It also suggests how interdisciplinary partnerships could go beyond tradititional implicit bias training to help law schools and legal employers craft a targeted response to address gendered communication bias in the profession.