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Fatherhood, gender and the making of professional identity in large law firms: bringing men into the frame

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2018

Richard Collier
Richard Collier*
Affiliation:
Newcastle Law School, Newcastle University, UK
*
E-mail: richard.collier@newcastle.ac.uk
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Abstract

This paper reframes debates about gender equality in the legal professions by interrogating the practices of men and interconnections between fatherhood, gender and parenting within the specific context of large corporate law firms. Drawing on interviews with male lawyer-fathers, it argues that closer exploration of fatherhood reveals much about the gendered dynamics of identity formation as a legal professional in this sector. A set of ideas about fatherhood, the paper suggests, shape how men's work can define a distinctive gender identity as a ‘family man’ and good lawyer. Political-economic and cultural shifts around fatherhood, however, are reconfiguring and adapting gender relations in law in a number of contradictory ways with implications for understanding the place of men in relation to gender-equality agendas. Ideas about fatherhood, family, work and career, I argue, are mobilised and enmeshed within the reproduction of distinctive law-firm cultures and gendered ideas of organisational commitment. What, in short, might it mean to be both a ‘good father’ and a ‘good lawyer’?

Keywords

legal professionsfatherhoodgender equalitywork–life
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 68 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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