Some thoughts on ‘Landmarks’
The word ‘landmark’ has been more than usually prominent in my various law-related channels of communication of late. As a matter of choice and interest, I keep up with the progress of the admirable Women’s Legal Landmarks project, which highlights significant steps on the far-from-finished road to equality, and will publish a book with Hart in 2018. In addition, my attention has been drawn by various people and by the publishers themselves to Hart’s several volume series, Landmark Cases in… which includes edited collections of articles on cases in particular fields of legal study. Same publisher, same word, but rather different ‘feel’ to the two lines of ‘landmarks’ offerings.
Perhaps, in light of my interest in the former, it will be unsurprising that I raised an eyebrow when checking the details of the Landmark Cases volumes on Hart’s website: the often very small proportion of women authors and editors. I should say straight away that there are exceptions – Property Law, Medical Law and Family Law had better balances in terms of authors, and included a couple of female editors. Elsewhere, however, things were much less encouraging: note the contents details for the volumes on Tort, Contract, Public Law, Land Law and Criminal Law. A researcher of the future, looking at these volumes, would take away a rather odd picture of early 21st century legal scholarship. Are there really so few eminent female scholars (http://www.bloomsburyprofessional.com/uk/series/landmark-cases/ ) in these fields? Perhaps these books will feature in a chapter in distantly forthcoming collection, Landmarks in Women’s Legal Scholarship (2117), preferably as a footnote example of quaint peculiarity in the one concerning the move towards gender balance as a normal part of academic conferences and publishing.
GS 12/7/2017