New Way Out for Women Lawyers: An Empirical Study in Taiwan

本文從實證研究之角度，探討臺灣律師在執業上所存有之性別差異及其原因。本研究透過大型問卷和深度訪談後發現，儘管臺灣社會對於律師此一業務之刻板印象，相對於律師業發展歷史久遠之國家較不深刻，然而，臺灣社會文化上普遍加諸於女性根深蒂固的性別定位，仍然透過各種層面的滲透，限制了女性律師的職涯發展。儘管如此，臺灣許多女性律師並未坐困愁城，而是利用現況，化危機為轉機，發展出律師執業的不同樣貌。本文的研究發現為臺灣律師業的現況，提供性別差異的實證發現和解釋，對於具有類似司法體制背景的國家或社會，亦具有參考之價值。

Gender attrition in careers is a phenomenon across continents. Whether gender-friendly benchmarks can reflect the degree of gender equality in the legal profession is still a question that has not been adequately explored. Taiwan is an ideal jurisdiction in which to explore whether and how gender plays a role in the legal profession. Taiwan’s legal profession has a relatively balanced gender composition, similar to that of Western countries, but is a late-comer on the other side of the globe. This study is the first comprehensive survey of lawyers in Taiwan regarding their scope of practice and background. The results of the survey, along with in-depth interviews, are intended to provide an analysis of the Taiwanese legal profession, particularly under the lens of gender, including the progress and challenges for women lawyers, as well as their opportunities and strategies. The results show that even though Taiwan has weaker stereotypes for lawyers, which makes women less disadvantaged compared to those in Western countries having a long-standing history of the legal profession, the gender roles embedded in social and family contexts have restrained their career advancement opportunities. Nonetheless, the results of this study indicate that most Taiwanese women have minimized such restraints through mitigating stereotypes and “practice migration” among fields or types of practice. Such findings may not only provide explanations for Taiwan’s situation in this regard, but they may also offer insights for other similarly situated jurisdictions with a relatively newly developed legal profession.