While women and minority partners continue to mark small gains in their representation among law firm partners as a whole, and while the percentage of minority associates has rebounded after falling in the wake of the recession, the percentage of women associates continues to decline compared to their male counterparts.
The latest National Association for Law Placement Inc. (NALP) findings on law firm demographics reveal that law firms have continued to make up most, but not all, of the ground lost when diversity figures fell in 2010.
While the overall representation of minorities continued to inch up, the overall representation of women increased by only a very small amount, and all of this gain can be attributed to increases in women among the partnership ranks.
Since the overall figure for women fell in 2011 compared to 2010, this small increase means that the overall percentage for women remains virtually flat compared to 2010.
In 2012, the percentage of both women and minority partners in law firms across the nation was up by a small amount compared with 2011.
Among associates, however, representation of women declined slightly for the third year in a row and for only the third time since NALP started compiling this information in the 1990s.
The net effect was that, for lawyers as a whole, representation of women was almost flat and remains lower than in 2009.
Representation of minority women was up by a very small amount. For minorities as a whole, representation was up
Minorities now make up 12.91 percent of lawyers at these law firms, compared with 12.70 percent in 2011.
Just under one-third of lawyers at these same firms are women — 32.67 percent in 2012 compared with 32.61 percent in 2011 and 32.69 percent in 2010, all lower than the 32.97 percent mark reached in 2009.
Minority women now account for 6.32 percent of lawyers at these firms, up a bit from 6.23 percent in 2011, and returning to a level comparable to the 6.33 percent figure for 2009.
Among associates specifically, however, the representation of women has continued its incremental but steady slide from 45.66 percent in 2009 to 45.05 percent in 2012.
Representation of minority women among associates is now just barely higher than the 11.02 percent figure for 2009.
During most of the 20 years that NALP has been compiling this information, law firms had made steady, if somewhat slow progress in increasing the presence of women and minorities in both the partner and associate ranks.
In 2012 that slow upward trend continued for partners, with minorities accounting for 6.71 percent of partners in the nation’s major firms, and women accounting for 19.91 percent of the partners in these firms.
In 2011, the figures were 6.56 percent and 19.54 percent, respectively. Nonetheless, the total change since 1993, the first year for which NALP has comparable aggregate information, has been only marginal.
At that time, minorities accounted for 2.55 percent of partners and women accounted for 12.27 percent of
Among associates, the percentage of women had increased from 38.99 percent in 1993 to 45.66 percent in 2009, before falling back each year since.
Over the same period, minority percentages have increased from 8.36 percent to 20.32 percent, more than recovering from a slight decline from 2009 to 2010.
Minority women continue to be the most dramatically underrepresented group at the partnership level, a pattern that holds across all firm sizes and most jurisdictions.
Minority women make up just over 2 percent of the partners in the nation’s major law firms.
At just 2.16 percent of partners in 2012, this group continues to be particularly underrepresented in the partnership ranks, despite a small increase from 2.04 percent in 2011.
The representation of minority women partners is somewhat higher, 2.62 percent, at the largest firms of more than 700 lawyers. Minority men, meanwhile, account for just 4.55 percent of
partners this year, almost unchanged from 4.52 percent in 2011.
At the associate level, minorities account for 20.32 percent of associates, up from 19.90 percent in 2011, and minority women account for 11.08 percent of associates, a small increase from 10.96 percent in 2011, and only a bit higher than the 11.02 percent figure reached in 2009.
These are the most significant findings of NALP’s recent analyses of the 2012-2013 NALP Directory of Legal Employers (NDLE), the annual compendium of legal employer data published by NALP.
“In 2010, on the heels of the recession, we saw the figures for women and minority associates dip for the first time since NALP began tracking lawyer demographics at law firms,” said James Leipold, NALP’s executive director. “Since then we have seen the figures for minority associates steadily bounce back, but the overall representation of women associates has continued to decline. This is a significant and troubling trend.”
“While the percentage of women partners, small as it is, has continued to grow, that incremental growth will likely become unsustainable if the percentage of women associates continues to inch downward,” he added.
He said the 2012 data suggest that the temporary setback for minority representation brought on by recession-era layoffs has been effectively reversed but that the decline in the representation of women among associates has not been stemmed.
“The continued loss of women from the associate ranks, at a time when far too few women make up the partners of U.S. law firms, is a problem that firms must begin to address head-on,” Leipold said.
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