Kaitlyn McCue, a Political Science minor at the University of South Carolina, won second place in the morning Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences poster session at Discover UofSC on April 22, 2022.

After winning a competitive Magellan Scholars award in December, Kaitlyn spent the spring collecting data on the career trajectories of men and women who worked in the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) between 1979 and 2018. The Solicitor General represents the United States government before the Supreme Court, and the attorneys who work in the office are considered some of the most talented attorneys in the country. With that said, very few women have worked in the OSG, which means few women have reaped the benefits from this experience. Kaitlyn wanted to study the gender dynamics of this office, particularly focusing on pre-and-post-OSG career trajectories.

Using her data, Kaitlyn found that the few women who work in the OSG boast the same high credentials as the men. But she also found that the women in the office are more likely to win their cases, which would suggest they must be incredibly talented to enter the office, even more so than their talented male counterparts. Finally, Kaitlyn found that women in the OSG go on to have lucrative private-sector careers, just like the men in the office do. Her work suggests that having women in the OSG is a good thing and that the women in it do well in their later careers.