WOMEN BARRISTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 30, 6 February 1939, Page 12

WOMEN BARRISTERS.

STATUS ACCEPTED.

POSITION IN FRANCE,

Women in France did not take long to get beyond the Portia stage, and to-day they are, if not as numerous as the men, a common sight at the Palais de Justice. Girls of the professional classes look 011 being a barrister as nothing much out of the way, aqd while they are sometimes photographed, chiefly because they are women, and so appear in the papers, yet even this is less frequent than formerly, and they are taken more or less as & matter of course (says the "Manchester Guardian").

In France the Bar does not wear a wig. The judges, on the other hand, have beautiful red robes which are impressive. In the Salle des Pas Perdus at the Palais de Justice in Paris bar- 1 riftters of both sexes pace up and down, talk to their clients on benches, discuss matters between themselves while they are waiting for their cases to come on. Majority Young. Among these is a comparatively large number of women. The majority are fairly young, as it is not so long since women began to practice at the Bar. Here and there, however, are some elderly women, who seem to l>e fully occupied and are busy with their clients. They wear the same black gown as the men. Most of them wear black dresses to go with these, though this is not invariably the case. Thev seem so used to it all that they are not sticklers for dress. One woman barrister did her hair in the new chignon fashion, but did not seem particularly conspicuous because of it.

One of the main differences is the feet. Instead of the large male trousered leg, theirs is the stockinged leg, with perhaps a high-heeled pump. This looks considerably less solid, less on the ground. Women barristers in France seem to have no more difficulty in getting clients than do their male equivalents.