Women Lawyers, Judges, and Law Professors and the Mobilization of Moral Agency to Reconfigure Professional Forces

The paper examines the role of women judges, lawyers, and law professors in mobilizing moral agency to reshape professional forces. It addresses moral disputes within the professional space, viewed as interactions within the professional ecology. It departs from the legal-liberal political order and its challenges and contestations. It focuses on the moral disputes surrounding these women's perceptions of their professional practice, institutional policies for reserving career positions for Blacks and women, political polarization, and democratic backsliding. These disputes seek to draw symbolic boundaries among women and between female and male colleagues, highlighting persistent tensions. The blurring of boundaries between legal expertise and politics illuminates professional cooperation and the identification between women and men in this regard. The paper also approaches how professional regulatory bodies use ethical codes to address political conduct producing professional impurity. The qualitative empirical data is drawn from 10 semi-structured interviews and online research on professional associations' websites and social networks. The fieldwork reveals how moral agency intertwines with the genderization and racialization of professional relations.