Although the number of women in the legal profession has increased dra
matically over the last 20 years, evidence shows that women continue t
o lag well behind men on every indicator of success. While the differe
nces in the careers of women and men lawyers have been explained in te
rms of either structural organizational constraints or tokenism, neith
er adequately addresses the persistence of the gender-based pecking or
der in law. It is argued here that part of the reason why this two-tie
red pecking order persists is related to the meanings attached to gend
er itself. No one has examined the social construction of gender in th
e legal profession. Thus, the analyses reported here add a new dimensi
on to the research on the legal profession. This paper focuses on the
content of gender interpretations and the professional contexts in whi
ch these interpretations are found. I examine these by analyzing the a
ttitudes of women and men lawyers and their observations of gender bia
s in professional situations. I predict that men lawyers will hold mor
e traditional attitudes about gender roles than women lawyers and that
women lawyers will observe more gender bias than men lawyers. Using d
ata from a large survey of lawyers (N = 1,863) in the Pittsburgh Metro
politan area, I compare (1) the gender role attitudes of women and men
lawyers; (2) the observations of gender bias in the professional inte
ractions of women and men lawyers; and (3) I analyze women lawyers' ac
counts of their personal experiences with gender bias. The results sup
port the predictions, and these findings are augmented by analysis of
in-depth accounts of actual experiences of gender bias by women lawyer
s in the course of doing legal work.