Women who argue in front of the US Supreme Court win just as often as men – but it’s harder for them to get there.

Over the past 70 years, lawyers have argued cases before the US Supreme Court more than 10,000 times, but just under seven percent of these appearances have been by women. In new research, Jonathan S. Hack and Clinton M. Jenkins find that while over time, women have been no less likely to win a Supreme Court case than men, women have had to be, on average, more qualified and experienced compared to their male counterparts in order to be able to appear there in the first place.