Abstract

Attorney success at oral arguments is related to compliance with gender norms, subtle expectations about how men and women should speak and act in a host of contexts. While oral arguments are typically between two attorneys, amici curiae are present in a significant minority of cases. Amici, often representing the federal government, lend credibility to their endorsed attorney and complement the argument. Much like arguments for attorneys representing the petitioner and respondent, we contend amici oral argument success is tied to the performance of gender. However, while attorneys for the petitioner and respondent are more successful when adhering to gender norms, amici success is tied to mimicry of the gender norms associated with the endorsed attorney. Thus, a female attorney supporting a male attorney will be more successful if she utilizes male gender norms. Drawing on communication literature, we argue this is because endorsed attorneys and their amici collectively construct a narrative. By arguing first, the endorsed attorney sets gender norm expectations which the amicus then matches via mimicry. We find support for this argument via a quantitative textual analysis of oral amicus arguments from the 2004–2016 terms. While our results add a new wrinkle to our understanding of gender at oral arguments, they also raise normative concerns. Whereas previous work indicates women must balance gender and professional norms, our results suggest that it is not just women who are held to this double standard, but also the men who support them. This compounds concerns about how effectively women can participate as counsel at the Supreme Court.

摘要

律师在口头辩论中的成功与遵守性别规范，对男人和女人在多种情况下如何说话和行动的微妙期望有关。虽然口头辩论通常是在两名律师之间进行，但在少数案件中仍存在amici curiae。通常代表联邦政府的阿米奇（Amici）为他们认可的律师提供信誉，并补充了这一论点。就像代表请愿人和答辩人的律师论证一样，我们认为amici口头论证的成功与性别表现息息相关。但是，虽然请愿人和答辩人的律师在遵守性别规范方面比较成功，但amici的成功与模仿与认可律师相关的性别规范有关。从而，如果支持男性律师，则支持男性律师的女性律师会更加成功。利用传播文献，我们认为这是因为认可的律师及其律师共同构成了一种叙述。首先争论的是，背书的律师设定了性别规范的期望，然后由法庭之所以通过模仿来匹配。我们通过对2004-2016年条款中的法庭之友口头辩论进行定量的文本分析来找到对此论点的支持。虽然我们的结果为口头辩论中对性别的理解增加了新的皱纹，但它们也引起了规范性的关注。尽管先前的工作表明女性必须在性别和职业规范之间取得平衡，但我们的研究结果表明，不仅女性要达到这一双重标准，而且男人必须支持这一双重标准。