Is The Aotearoa / New Zealand Law Student And Law Graduate Experience A Gendered Experience?

• Date: 01 January 2023

123

IS THE AOTEAROA / NEW ZEALAND

LAW STUDENT AND LAW GRADUATE

EXPERIENCE A GENDERED EXPERIENCE?







From 2014 to 2019, w e conducted a nat ional longit udinal study c apturing the l aw

school and bey ond experiences of a self-selected co hort of students who were enroll ed in

first-year law pro grammes at the Uni versities of Auc kland, Can terbury, and Waik ato

in 2014. Our ai m was to provide l aw students , law teachers , law schools , the Council

of Legal Educati on, and the lega l profession with c omprehensi ve data on the Aotea roa

| New Zealand law stud ent and law grad uate experienc e. Data were col lected on seven

dierent occa sions over st udents’ time at l aw school and t ransition int o the workforce.

A total of 75 students (9 .5 per cent of the full dataset, n = 785) pa rticipated at each data

point, and we s ought to capture th eir lived exper iences as law s tudents and gr aduates.

Consistent w ith actual enrolments at Aotea roa | New Zealand law schools, a majo rity of

the cohort (64 per cen t, n = 48) was female. Consiste nt with the gender-focused Aotea roa

| New Zealand and inter national literat ure, our results show t hat in some respects the l aw

student experi ence was a gendered one. How ever, this finding was not repli cated in early

workplace experiences. We consider what lessons the identified gender dierences oer

for law teachers , the legal profession, an d employers of law graduates .

* Lynne Taylor i s a Professor in the Fac ulty of Law at th e University of Ca nterbury. Nat alie Baird

is an Asso ciate Profes sor in the Facu lty of Law at the Un iversity of C anterbur y, Ursula Cheer i s a

Professor of L aw in the Facu lty of Law at th e Universit y of Canterbu ry, Valerie Sot ardi is a S enior

Lectu rer of Educat ional Ps ychology & Qu antit ative Res earch i n the School o f Education al Stu dies

and Leader ship at the Un iversity of Canterbu ry, and Erik Brogt is a n Associ ate Profess or of

Academic De velopment in the O ce of the Deputy V ice-Cha ncellor (Acad emic) at the Univer sity

of Canterbu ry. We acknowle dge, wit h than ks, fund ing suppor t received from Ako Aote aroa,

the assis tance provide d by Dr Elizabet h Gordon and the work of ou r research ass istant, Ol ivia

Mackintosh.

124 [Vol 30, 2023]

I. Introduction

From 2014 to 2 019, we conducted a n ational lon gitudi nal st udy captu ring th e

law school and ea rly car eer experience s of a self-selecte d cohort of Aotea roa |

New Zeala nd students w ho were enrolled i n first-yea r law progr ammes at th e

Universitie s of Auckland, Cant erbury, and Waikat o in 2014.1 Our a im was to provide

law students , law teachers, law sc hools, the Counci l of Legal Educat ion, and the lega l

profession with c omprehensive data on the Aot earoa | New Zeala nd law student and

law graduat e experience . We collected dat a from par ticipa nts on seven occa sions

over their ti me at law school and fi rst year s in the workfor ce. Seventy-five of t he

star ting cohort of 78 5 participat ed in every sur vey across the long itudina l study, and

it is their res ponses that a re analysed b y gender in this pape r. Consistent wit h actual

enrolments at A otearoa | New Zeal and law schools, a majori ty of the 75 were female.

We present their resp onses as reported a nd track trends acros s time.

Throughout t he longitudina l study, we contextual ised the data collec ted on the

law school exper ience with r eference to the fac tors identi fied in hig her education

literatu re as ali gned with s tudent persist ence, positive st udent engagement and

self-ecacy. Our r esults a re grouped i n accordanc e with th is fra mework. By the

time of the la st data collecti on, most of the cohort of 75 had com pleted a law degree

and were employed in work of a le gal nat ure that t hey found sati sfyi ng and, for

the most par t, enjoyable . As was pred icted by thei r pre-univer sity back grounds

and char acteris tics, they wer e largely per sisti ng, engag ed and confident s tudents.

Althoug h unique i n the respec ts we have identi fied, the cohor t is neverth eless a

constit uent group wit hin t he wider law st udent population . Our focus i s whether

this per sisting and succes sful cohort report ed a gendered experience at law school

and beyond. Con sistent w ith the gender-focu sed Aotea roa | New Zeal and and

internat ional literat ure, we conclude that in some r espects the cohor t’s law student

experience wa s a gendered one, but th at this wa s not so for the cohort ’s reported

workplace exper iences. Identi fied gender dierenc es at law school inc luded

reported ex periences of formal lear ning oppor tuni ties and sel f-ecacy levels. We

also conside r what lessons t he identified gender d ierences oer for law teachers,

the legal pr ofession, and employers of law gra duates.

1 The law school s at the participat ing uni versities m ake up half of all Aot earoa | New Zealan d

law schools. T he law school at the Univers ity of Auckland is Aot earoa | New Zeala nd’s largest

law school. The U niversit y of Waikato is one of Aotea roa | New Zealand’s newer la w schools.

The Universi ties of Auckland and Wa ikato are situ ated in the North Is land of Aotearoa | New

Zeala nd. The law school at t he Universit y of Canterbu ry is one of two l aw schools situ ated in the

South Isla nd. The par ticipatin g law schools repr esent a cross-se ction of Aotea roa | New Zeal and

law schools.

Is The Aotearoa / New Zea land Law Student And Law G raduate

Experience A Gendered Experience?

125

Results a nd findin gs are base d on data collec ted prior to t he COVID-19 pand emic,

but stil l provide a useful poi nt in time reference. Key g ender dierences also r emain

relevant in t he post-COV ID-19 lea rning a nd teach ing and work ing envi ronment.

For example, law t eachers may take account of ident ified gender dierences in t he

learni ng exper iences they prov ide for their st udents in the p ost-Covid s ettin g in

which att endance at face-to-face cl asses has fal len and online lea rning has bec ome

more common.

The next sect ion overviews le gal educat ion in Aotea roa | New Zea land. Thi s is

followed by a liter ature rev iew and descr iption of the long itudi nal st udy method.

Results a re presented and di scussed. The fina l section concludes.





The law degrees oer ed at the universit ies participat ing in this s tudy all requ ire

a four-year, ful l-time under graduate pr ogram me of study. Many of ou r cohort of

75 completed a law de gree concu rrently w ith anot her degree (most f requently a

Bachelor of Ar ts), resulting in a five–fi ve-and-a-half-year, full-t ime programme of

study. Each of the law de grees oered by the part icipating univers ities is approved

by the New Zeal and Counci l of Lega l Education (CLE). Com pletion of an approve d

degree is one of t he require ments for admis sion as a Bar rister a nd Solicit or of

the High Cou rt of New Zea land. The ot her requi rement is the complet ion of the

Professiona l Legal Studies Cou rse, a 13-week full-time , skills-based cou rse oered

by several non-un iversit y providers. On ly those ad mitt ed as a Bar rister a nd

Solicitor may b e issued a pract ising cer tific ate by the New Zea land La w Society |

Te Kāhui T ure o Aotearoa. An i ndividual must hold a cu rrent practising c ertificate

before they may oer leg al services as a l awyer.2

CLE-approved law de grees are m ade up of a series of compu lsory cou rses

that stude nts complete acro ss their fir st thre e years of st udy. These courses a re

perceived to be f undament al to legal pract ice and include t he Legal System , Law of

Contract, La w of Torts, Criminal Law , Public Law, and Prope rty Law (or both Land Law

and Equity/Law of Succession). Because of t heir compuls ory natu re, these cou rses

have large en rolments (200 or mor e students) a nd are taug ht via a combi nation

of large cla sses (lect ures) and sm all cla sses (tutor ials). Lec tures a re timet abled

more frequent ly than t utoria ls at each of the p artic ipating law s chools. To ensur e

2 Lawyers and C onveyancers Act 200 6 (NZ), s 4 (see the definit ions of “lawyer”, “legal s ervices”

and “lega l work”).