JUDGES Call Her Mister

For all its wigs, gowns and black silk stockings, British law remains so anti-feminist that only 100 women have yet joined the country's 2,000 barristers (lawyers who plead court cases).* Only four women barristers have yet earned the elite title of Queen's Counsel (senior barrister). Only one woman Q.C. has yet become a judge in one of Britain's nearly 400 county courts. Not surprisingly, the elevation of that same woman to the country's No. 3 tribunal, the High Court of Justice, has touched off a splendidly British protocol crisis.

Visually, Mrs. Elizabeth Lane, 60, will look little different from her male colleagues when she dons her gown and wig and joins four other new appointees as the first woman among the High Court's 62 justices. But the problem is: what should lawyers call her? "My Lord" seemed confusing at best, while traditionalists cringed at the sound of "Mrs. Justice." After grave deliberation, the Lord Chancellor's office has duly issued its decision: henceforth, Mrs. Lane will be Mr. Justice Lane, and may indeed be called "My Lord." "There simply isn't any precedent for calling a woman anything different," argued a harassed official. "We've taken what seems the least absurd decision."

His Lordship, Mr. Justice Lane, is also entitled by ancient judicial tradition to a bachelor knighthood. For women, the corresponding title that goes with the honor is Dame, but if diehards have their way, the new justice may be deprived even of that feminine distinction and wind up as Sir Elizabeth Lane.

* Another 20,000 British lawyers (solicitors) do the vast bulk of legal work that never reaches courtrooms. Of those, 750 are women.

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