Reference no: EM131147355

PART ONE-SHORT ANSWERS: Answer any five of the following 10 questions. Type or paste your answers in the boxes after each question. You can type single-spaced, but you must confine your answer to the allotted space (2100 characters, or about 300-350 words). Confine your answers to material from lectures and course readings.  You may use bullet points or numbered lists if appropriate, but be sure to write complete grammatical sentences.  

1.   Why was the Voting Rights Act of 1965 more successful than the Voting Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960?

2. Give two reasons why school desegregation was more successful in the southern states than in the northern and western states.

3. Give three reasons why EEO/AA law has been less effective than it might otherwise have been.

4. Under what circumstances are executive agencies likely to be more effective than courts in enforcing civil rights law? Under what circumstances might the reverse be true? Give examples.

5. Write three interesting statements that appear to be true based on the following table.

Distribution of Black Students in Desegregated and Segregated Schools by Region, 1968 & 1980

6. Using the Stender v. Lucky Stores case as an example, describe why it is harder for plaintiffs to prove disparate treatment than it is to prove disparate impact. In this respect, is the Lucky Stores case typical or atypical of most employment discrimination lawsuits? 

7. Briefly describe how the American legal profession has changed over the last 50 years or so in terms of age, race/ethnicity, class, and gender.

8. Write three interesting statements that appear to be true based on the following table.

Distribution of Lawyers in Practice Settings (percentages), 1951-2000

* Percentage growth 1980-2000 only.

9. Are female lawyers more likely to be promoted to partner in small firms or large firms? Why? Are they as successful as male lawyers with similar qualifications? Why or why not?

10. Suggest three ways in which private legal practice has changed in the last few decades.

PART TWO-ESSAY: Answer one of the following questions. Since you are expected to draw only on lectures and course readings, there is no need to attach a bibliography. If you refer to or quote specific authors, cite them using last names only [e.g., "Smith (p. 57) says that..."].

1. Choose any two of the civil rights law reforms we have discussed in this course (voting rights, school desegregation, and equal employment opportunity/affirmative action) and compare them in terms of their characteristics and effectiveness.
  
2. Use the Parents Concerned v. Seattle case to describe some of the limitations of legal remedies for school desegregation, particularly in non-Southern states.

3. What strategies has the American legal profession used to establish a professional monopoly? In what sense have these strategies been successful or unsuccessful? Why?

4. In many ways, the fate of women in the legal profession is different from that of other minorities. Describe the processes that have influenced the rate at which women have been incorporated into the profession, and the kinds of career paths they have followed. Offer some informed speculation about the future of women in the legal profession.