Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Session 3, 1:30-2:15pm
Judges and Gender-Neutral Language: Whether They Use It and What We Can Learn from Their Practices
Judith D. Fischer
Program Code: T3F
The first part of this session will present background and the results of an empirical study of federal judges’ use of gender-neutral language. The study covers a sample of U.S. Court of Appeals opinions dated from January 2006 through June 2007. Study data show to what extent the judges use gender-neutral language and, for those who do, what kinds of gender-neutral language they use. The remainder of the session will be devoted to a small-group discussion of gender-neutral language, whether it should be covered in legal writing courses, and if so, how it can best be covered.