This article examines whether the gender balance on the High Court of Australia has disrupted the gender regime. In so doing it considers the first lead judgments of the three women judges who sat concurrently on the High Court of Australia between 2009 and early 2015. The High Court has adopted an interesting informal practice of welcoming new judges whereby the newest member authors the lead judgment and their judicial colleagues offer a one-line concurrence. The way in which judicial authority (...) is conferred in these judgments is reminiscent of the space in political spheres where an incumbent has their first opportunity to set out their identity and agenda in a speech free of the noise of dissent or debate; the ‘maiden’ speech. In that space the price an incumbent pays for comity is conformity. This article contends that the first judgment is a useful way of situating a discussion about women judges’ contributions vis-à-vis difference by querying the extent to which the woman judge can ever shake-off her status as the maiden bound to conform for the sake of comity. (shrink)

In January 2004 Baroness Brenda Hale became the first woman to sit on the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords. Five years on, she has brought to her judicial role a lightness of touch that belies her increasingly significant impact on the court’s jurisprudence. Early forecasts that she would be “just a bit different” from her male companions have proved prophetic. However such assessments have stemmed primarily from a focus on her decision-making on a case-by-case basis. But what of (...) her jurisprudence as a whole? This paper considers arguments for a more sustained and coherent methodological approach to analyses of Baroness Hale’s (and other judges’) jurisprudence as a framework through which to better understand and explore the potential of judicial difference and to better inform current debates about increasing judicial diversity in England and Wales. (shrink)

This paper considers the adoption ofPortia, the heroine of The Merchant ofVenice, by feminist legal scholars as ametaphor for the woman lawyer. It suggests thatPortia has both captured and is captured by thefeminist legal scholar's imagination, becomingat once an idol, myth and icon. She is to somethe personification of the woman lawyer'sperceived difference, a mouthpiece for mercyand `the different voice' and to others, a shamor myth, her idolised reputation sullied, her`difference' rejected. Yet ultimately thisconstant and simultaneous idolisation andvilification of Portia (...) threatens not only tosilence and constrain conversations about thewoman lawyer, but also to eclipse her promiseand potential. Thus in the final section of thepaper, Portia is established as an icon. Assuch her story, understood as a myth or fairytale, is seen to reveal previously unimaginedpossibilities for change, as an iconicunderstanding of Portia becomes a windowthrough which feminist legal scholars can lookonto alternative understandings of lawyeringand adjudication. (shrink)