As a nervous 18-year old intern, I entered one of the courtrooms at the Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court on a busy day.
While the proceedings were ongoing, I stared at a room full of men in black coats and wondered where to sit. Ultimately, I saw a vacant seat and adjusted there for the time being. Sometime later, a woman lawyer came and sat next to me. Enthusiastically, I introduced myself with the hope of asking her some questions about her legal practice.
The lawyer told me that she assisted her father, a senior advocate, in cases before the High Court. When I asked her if she also went to the district court in relation to work, her response was a loud ‘no’.
On informing her of my plans to make a district court visit in a few days, she seemed very concerned and said, “My father would never let me go there. All sorts of people ogle at you, some may even touch you inappropriately in the crowd.”
While I was not surprised with the response, it was certainly not the ‘welcome’ I expected into the legal profession. In one day spent at the court, all my ideas of ‘creating change’ went for a toss when I could not even access a clean washroom during my menstrual cycle.
Later in the day, I also witnessed a woman lawyer being asked to “learn from her seniors” when trying to argue a matter before the judge. The question I asked myself on reaching home was – how do practising women lawyers tackle all this, and much more on a daily basis?
I settled on taking ibuprofen and using the washroom in a building next to the court over the course of my internship experience.
If what you have read so far makes you think hard, keep scrolling to understand the following:
- One, the barriers to better representation of women lawyers at the district court level;
- Two, why inclusive institutional setups are non-negotiable to provide a level-playing field.
How Numbers Speak More than Men in the Legal Profession
At the outset, it needs to be acknowledged that the collection of accurate primary data at the lowest levels of the judicial hierarchy is a very daunting task. Owing to the same, there is no estimation of the exact number of women litigators in district courts.
However, a 2018 report of the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy titled ‘Tilting the Scale: Gender Imbalance in the Lower Judiciary’ does note how merely 28% of judges (approximately) in the lower judiciary are women. Moreover, Bar and Bench observed through its preliminary study that merely 2.04% of the elected representatives in State Bar Councils are women. Why are these numbers important?
These numbers reflect a sobering reality in the legal profession. An article on Youth Ki Awaaz previously observed that a lack of representation of women in the judiciary translates into an insensitive and apathetic attitude of the institution towards women lawyers and staff.
More often than not, women litigators have to face additional challenges in making themselves heard. Colleagues and seniors who display hostile attitudes, as well as clients who doubt the soundness of their advice (and ultimately pay them lesser than their male counterparts) are only part of the bigger problem.
What Law You Practice Depends On Your Gender
Recently, I spoke to a woman lawyer who practices at the trial court level. She told me how women lawyers are pigeonholed into specific legal domains such as family law and expected to tackle household matters with a “caring” attitude even in their professional capacity.
She also spoke of the biases demonstrated by senior advocates she worked under – though they were encouraging and helpful, they often expressed scepticism while entrusting her with challenging legal matters. In one of her lectures about litigation, Avani Bansal talked about an uncomfortable experience at the district court in Harda, Madhya Pradesh, where a man constantly stared at her chest.
Additionally, another woman lawyer who practices at the trial court level told me how women in litigation are often not extended adequate support by their families.
The situation is worse for women who ‘dare to’ venture into criminal litigation, a domain that requires them to act in stark contrast to society’s gendered expectations.
The lawyer also spoke to me about discrimination faced by women lawyers during their pregnancy. These issues, according to her, allowed men an “upper hand” in the profession.
Infrastructural barriers make the situation even worse. In October last year, Chief Justice N.V. Ramana remarked with concern that 26% of the court premises in the country have no separate toilets for women and that 16% of the court premises have no toilets at all.
Such infrastructural barriers which include lack of access to vending machines for sanitary napkins, child support measures such as maternity leaves for working mothers also add to the already exploitative positions women litigators find themselves in. Hence, the flexibility offered by litigation in terms of areas of practice and working hours is unsurprisingly, not uniformly available to all.
A System Designed By Men Won’t Be Inclusive To Future Entrants
It is 2022 and the representation of, and challenges faced by women as advocates are not substantially different. Yes, there are positives. For the first time in the history of the Supreme Court of India, three women judges were administered the oath of office.
However, for young women who are first-generation entrants into the field of litigation, infrastructural and social support continue to be essential. Certain individuals who are well-established in the profession take pride in surviving its ‘ruthlessness’. This prompts scores of young law students to adopt a similar outlook towards their own legal practice, thereby contributing to the same toxic work culture over years (in terms of pay, working hours, leaves, etc.).
What successful people in the profession fail to understand is that cultivating healthy work atmospheres is not catering to luxury. When Justice Pratibha Singh asks young women to not seek institutional support and consideration for familial obligations such as child care, she asks future entrants to expect a work culture that is unwilling to change.
Such statements make the entire debate frustrating – when future entrants are expected to follow the same journey, endure the same obstacles, face the same harassment, then how is it legitimate to claim that the judiciary is progressive? Rather, I would argue that it places the burden of breaking the stereotypes on women, and unfairly so!
India ranks 140 out of 156 countries in the Global Gender Gap Report (2021). Creating accommodative and sensitive work environments for women litigators is not a ‘drain of resources’ for the employer. It is not an act of generosity, and the same needs to be acknowledged.
We need to hear experiences of women litigators practising across the 672 district courts and 3000 complexes in the country – the challenges they face, the reasons that force them to leave practice to necessitate introspection by the legal fraternity, and urgent action.
Featured image is for representational purposes only.
This is the first part of the three-part series on ‘under-representation of women lawyers at the trial court level‘ as a part of the Justicemakers’ Writer’s Training Program, run in partnership with Agami and Ashoka’s Law For All Initiative. The second and third parts can be found here and here.