Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
Alternative Law Journal
Publisher
SAGE
School
School of Arts and Humanities
RAS ID
35650
Funders
Public Purposes Trust of the Law Society of Western Australia
Abstract
This article reports on a qualitative study aimed at understanding how LGBTQI+ law students and recent graduates perceive and experience the legal profession. While we found that several participants self-censor in interactions with the profession, others considered their LGBTQI+ identity as advantageous, enabling them to benefit from ‘diversity hiring’. Despite this, many participants regarded the legal profession as ‘conservative’ and influenced by the ‘old guard’, which remains unaccepting of LGBTQI+ identities. Participants also considered the profession to be more accepting of some LGBTQI+ identities than others. We conclude by suggesting strategies to improve perceptions and experiences of the profession.
DOI
10.1177/1037969X211007576
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Comments
This is an author's accepted manuscript of: Ricciardo, A., Puttick, S., Rogers, S., Skead, N., Tarrant, S., & Thomas, M. (2021). Perceptions of LGBTQI+ diversity in the legal profession: ‘It's happening slow, but it’s certainly happening’. Alternative Law Journal, 46(2), 100-107. (SAGE). https://doi.org/10.1177/1037969X211007576