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There is a fairly extensive and longstanding literature on the nature and causes of dissensus on appellate courts in the US. However, much of this literature suffered from two shortcomings that reduce its utility in providing a general theory of dissent. First, much of the work has taken a single court as the sole focus of analysis. Additionally, many of the earlier studies have failed to account for the increasing diversity of appellate courts. We propose to address these lacunae with a cross national analysis of changing patterns of dissensus over time in two national high courts: the supreme courts of the United States and Canada from 1950 to the present. The Supreme Court of Canada provides a useful basis of comparison to the US because although the two courts are similar in many ways, the gender diversification of the high court has proceeded much more rapidly in Canada than in the U.S. This will not only allow us to test whether theories of dissensus developed in the US retain their explanatory power in a similar common law court but will also permit a more thorough examination of the impact of gender diversity on dissensus. We propose to test whether diversity effects emerge on the supreme courts of the US and Canada as the number of women on the courts increases. We will further test whether dissensus is greater in cases raising women's issues and whether diversity induced dissensus depends on reaching a "critical mass" of women on the court. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a cross-national study that examines the role of gender in judicial decision making in the U.S., Canada and Great Britain. It mentions that socialization of female lawyers with female judges within the respective judicial systems might affect the case outcome. The study examined appellate court decisions in each country from 1980 to 2000.