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TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ..1New for 2019 1Commentary & Analysis .2Highlights 3Signi˜cant Findings ..5Tables ..10Table 1. Women and People of Color at Law Firms Š 1993Œ2019 .11Chart 1. Percentage of Partners that are Women and People of Color at Law Firms, 1993Œ2019 ..13Chart 2. Percentage of Associates that are Women and People of Color at Law Firms, 1993Œ2019 .13Chart 3: Percentage of Counsel that are Women and People of Color at Law Firms, 2012Œ2019 ..14Chart 4: Percentage of Non-traditional Track/Sta˚ Attorneys that are Women and People of Color at Law Firms, 2014Œ2019 .14Chart 5: Percentage of All Lawyers that are Women and People of Color at Law Firms, 2006Œ2019 ..15Chart 6: Percentage of Summer Associates that are Women and People of Color at Law Firms, 1993Œ2019 .15Table 2. Partner and Associate Demographics at Law Firms Š 2009Œ2019 .16Table 3. Percent of Partners Reported as Equity Partners for Men, Women, and People of Color 17Table 4. Distribution of Equity and Non-equity Partners for Men, Women, and People of Color ..17Table 5. Distribution of All Partners by Equity Status for Men, Women, and People of Color .18Table 6. Women and People of Color at Law Firms Š Partners and Associates Š 2019 ..19Table 7. Women and People of Color at Law Firms Š Counsel and Non-traditional Track/ Sta˚ Attorneys Š 2019 ..21
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Table 8. Women and People of Color at Law Firms Š Total Lawyers and Summer Associates Š 2019 .23Chart 7: Percentage of Women and People of Color at Law Firms Š 2019 25Table 9. Partner Demographics at Law Firms Š 2019 ..26Table 10. Associate Demographics at Law Firms Š 2019 28Table 11. Lawyers with Disabilities Š 2019 ..30Table 12. LGBT Lawyers Š 2019 .30Table 13. Reporting of LGBT Lawyers Š A 15-Year Retrospective 31Chart 8: Percentage of LGBT Lawyers, 2004Œ2019 32Table 14. Lawyers who are Military Veterans Š 2019 33TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued)
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1Women and people of color continued to make incremental gains in representation at major U.S. law ˜rms in 2019 compared with 2018, according to the latest law ˜rm demographic ˜ndings from the National Association for Law Placement (NALP). In another bright spot from 2019 Š Black or African-American representation among associates has ˜nally surpassed the 2009 ˜gures for the ˜rst time since the Great Recession, albeit by just one-tenth of a percentage point. However, the percentage of associates that are Black or African-American women remains slightly below the 2009 ˜gure, despite increasing one-quarter of a percentage point in 2019. NALP™s recent analyses of the 2019-2020 NALP Directory of Legal Employers (NDLE) Š the annual compendium of legal employer data published by NALP Š shows that women and people of color continued to make small improvements in their representation among law ˜rm partners in 2019. While the overall percentage of women associates has decreased almost as o˚en as not since 2009, it has been on a steady rise for the past four consecutive years. Likewise, the percentage of Black or African-American associates has declined in more years than not since 2009, while also increasing in each of the past four years. Women accounted for the majority of all summer associates (52.66%) for the second year in a row. INTRODUCTION ˛ere are several new and expanded tables within the report this year. ˛e trend data in Table 1 now dates back to 1993. Counsel and non-traditional track/sta˝ attorneys have also been added to Table 1 and more detailed 2019 data for these lawyer categories are presented in Table 7. Additionally, for the ˜rst time this report includes ˜ndings on the demographics of equity partners, which are reported in Tables 3Œ5. It is important to note that this information is reported in the NDLE separately from the demographics grid information used for the other analyses in this report. Table 13 is a new trend table on LGBT lawyers and Table 14 presents, for the ˜rst time in this report, data on lawyers who are military veterans. NEW FOR ˜˚˛˝
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2˛e highlight of NALP™s 2019 Report on Diversity in U.S. Law Firms is the ˜nding that for the ˜rst time since the Great Recession, the percent of Black or African-American associates in large law ˜rms ˜nally eclipsed, albeit barely, the percent measured in 2009. While that is a positive sign, it is barely so, and it strikes me as somewhat of a tragedy that it has taken more than 10 years to achieve such a meager benchmark, and it is notable that the number remains well below ˜ve percent. ˛e overall arc of the storyline for large law ˜rm diversity remains the same Š it is one of slow incremental gains for women and people of color in both the associate and partnership ranks, interrupted by some recession-era setbacks, but at a rate so slow as to almost seem imperceptible at times. Women and people of color continue to be well represented in law school and in the summer associate class, but at each year a˚er that women and people of color leave the lawyer ranks at law ˜rms at a higher rate than white men, and women of color remain the most underrepresented of all, with Asian women making up just 1.46% of law ˜rm partners, Latinx women making up just 0.80% of law ˜rm partners, and Black or African-American women making up just 0.75% of law ˜rm partners. Women overall remain grossly underrepresented among the equity ranks of law ˜rms, with just one in ˜ve equity partners being women (worse, only 7.6% of equity partners are people of color). ˛e number of LGBT lawyers in large law ˜rms continues to rise, with the highest representation among the summer associate ranks, where nearly 7% of all summer associates were reported as LGBT. At the largest law ˜rms of more than 700 lawyers, the ˜gure was over 7%. By contrast, lawyers with disabilities of all sorts remain vastly underreported, with only about one half of one percent of all lawyers in large law ˜rms being reported as having a disability, a ˜gure that is dramatically at odds with the numbers of students in both the undergraduate and law school settings who report having disabilities. Finally, diversity in U.S. law ˜rms remains a story of geography, with law ˜rms in some cities reporting far higher rates of diversity than others, with Seattle and San Francisco ˜rms reporting the highest percent of women partners, and Miami far outstripping all other cities in reporting partners who are people of color, at nearly 35% Š New York™s percentage by contrast was just a third of that. Having watched these numbers carefully for more than 15 years, I have become convinced that despite steady gains, great structural and cultural hurdles remain that prevent law ˜rms from being able to measure more rapid progress in increasing diversity, particularly among the partnership ranks. COMMENTARY & ANALYSIS BY JAMES LEIPOLD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
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3HIGHLIGHTSASSOCIATES Ł Women, people of color, and women of color all made steady gains in representation at the associate level. Some of the largest increases were realized for people of color, jumping about 1.2 percentage points from 24.22% in 2018 to 25.44% in 2019. Ł Black or African-American associates surpassed the 2009 level of 4.66% for the ˙rst time since the reces -sion, rising to 4.76%; however, the share of Black or African-American women (2.80%) remains just below the 2009 ˙gure of 2.93%. PARTNERS Ł In 2019, women, people of color, and women of color all made small improvements in representation at the partner level. Women experienced the biggest gains, increasing by approximately 0.8 percentage points from 23.36% in 2018 to 24.17% in 2019. Ł Women of color continued to be the most dramatically underrepresented group at the partnership level; however, the percentage of partners that are women of color has nearly doubled since 2009, growing from 1.88% in 2009 to 3.45% in 2019. EQUITY PARTNERS Ł Equity partners in multi-tier law ˙rms continue to be disproportionately white men. In 2019, just 1 in 5 equity partners were women (20.3%) and only 7.6% were people of color. Ł Almost 61% of men partners were equity partners as of February 2019, while somewhat less than half, not quite 47%, of women partners, and about 49% of partners of color, were equity partners. Ł Among non-equity partners, almost 69% were men, just over 31% were women, and 10.7% were people of color. COUNSEL Ł Representation of women among counsel increased by about 1.5 percentage points to 36.90% in 2019. NON˜TRADITIONAL TRACK/STAFF ATTORNEYS Ł The percentage of people of color and women of color increased among non-traditional track/ staˆ attorneys. Ł Overall, women experienced a small decrease of approximately 0.2 percentage points in their represen -tation among non-traditional track/staˆ attorneys; however, they still account for the majority (57.45%) of these attorneys. HIGHLIGHTS
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5ASSOCIATES Representation of women, people of color, and women of color among associates saw positive gains in 2019. Representation of women has climbed four years in a row and exceeded the high previously reached in 2009 each of the past two years. ˜e percentage of associates that are people of color and women of color are also at historic highs. NALP™s analysis found that representation of associates of color has continued to increase since 2010 (from 19.53% to 25.44%) following widespread layo˝s in 2009. Over the same period of time, however, representation of women didn™t realize a net increase until 2018. In 2019, the percentage of women increased to 46.77% from 45.91% in 2018. ˛e 2019 ˜gure exceeds the 2009 ˜gure of 45.66% by 1.1 percentage points and is the highest percentage on record in the 27 years in which NALP has been reporting data. In contrast to the pattern for women as a whole, representation of women of color among associates has increased from about 11% (2009-2012) to 14.48% in 2019, though some backsliding in 2010 is noted. (See Table 1.) However, nearly one percentage point of this gain occurred within the last year. Much of the increase in the representation of people of color since 2011 can be attributed to increased representation of Asians among associates. While overall representation of people of color fell in 2010, this was not the case for Asian associates. Asian associates now make up 12.17% of all associates, with representation having risen about 2.9 percentage points, from 9.28% in 2009. Latinx associate representation has also grown in more recent years. A˚er ˙uctuating between 3.81% and 3.95% of associates between 2009 and 2014, Latinx associates have slightly outnumbered Black or African-American associates since 2015. In 2019, 5.17% of associates were Latinx, increasing almost half a percentage point from 2018. In contrast to trends among Asian and Latinx associates, representation of Black or African- Americans among associates fell every year from 2010 to 2015, but has grown slightly in each of the past four years from 2016-2019, and ˜nally surpassed the 2009 level of 4.66% in 2019 by 0.1 percentage points, reaching 4.76% (See Table 2.) PARTNERS In 2019, representation of women, people of color, and women of color among partners in law ˚rms all increased over 2018, with women overall experiencing the largest gains. During the 27 years that NALP has been compiling this information, law ˜rms have made steady incremental Š though very slow Š progress in increasing the presence of women and people of color in the partner ranks. In 2019, that upward trend continued, with people of color accounting for 9.55% of partners in major U.S. ˜rms and women accounting for 24.17% of the partners in these ˜rms, up from 9.13% and 23.26%, respectively, in 2018. An increase of about eight-tenths of a percentage point in representation of women among partners is noted as the second largest on record during the entire span of NALP™s compilation of these ˜gures, exceeded only by the growth seen in 2014. SIGNIFICANT FINDINGS
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6reporting accounted for 20,308 partners, or about 65% of the partners reported in oˆces with multi-tier partnerships reported in the NALP Directory. Note that ˜gures by gender also include the count of people of color. To the extent that broad trends in the data can be identi˜ed over the period for which this information has been collected, it appears that the distribution of all partners by equity status has moved by only a bit towards greater proportions of women and people of color, just as women and people of color have made small gains in representation among partners as a whole. For instance, between 2011 and 2019, the percent of all partners who were men equity partners fell from 51.7% to 45.7%, while the percent of all partners who were women equity partners rose from 9.5% to 11.6%, and the percent of all partners who were equity partners of color rose from 2.9% to 4.4%. Notably, over the same period, the percentage of partners overall who are equity partners has decreased. (See Table 5.) COUNSEL Representation of women, people of color, and women of color among counsel in law ˚rms grew in 2019. Women, in particular, experienced the largest year- over-year increase in representation among counsel since NALP began reporting data on counsel separately in 2012. Representation among women has generally increased since NALP ˜rst began reporting data on counsel speci˜cally in 2012, with some small declines from the 2014 ˜gure experienced from 2015-2017. ˛ese declines have since been erased and representation among women are at all-time highs, increasing from 35.37% in 2018 to 36.90% in 2019. ˛e share of people of color and women of color among counsel has also, for the most part, increased over the last seven years, with one small dip in the Nevertheless, over the period of time that NALP has been reporting these data, the gains for women and partners of color have been minimal at best. In 1993 people of color accounted for 2.55% of partners and women accounted for 12.27% of partners. And at just 3.45% of partners in 2019, women of color continue to be the most dramatically underrepresented group at the partnership level, a pattern that holds across all ˜rm sizes and most jurisdictions. ˛e representation of women of color at the partnership level is somewhat higher (4.06%) at the largest ˜rms with more than 700 lawyers. Men of color, meanwhile, accounted for just 6.10% of partners in 2019, compared with 5.94% in 2018. But, as is the case with associates, most of the increase in representation of partners of color since 2009 can be attributed to an increase of Asian and Latinx men partners in particular. Representation of Black or African-Americans among partners has only increased about a quarter of one percent during this period and was 1.97% in 2019, up slightly from 1.83% in 2018. (See Table 2.) Black or African-American and Latinx women each still account for less than one percent of all partners, at 0.75% and 0.80% respectively, in 2019. EQUITY PARTNERS In 2019, the percentage of women and people of color that are equity partners increased; however, both groups are still considerably underrepresented. For the ˜rst time this report includes ˜ndings on the demographics of equity partners. It is important to note that equity partner information is reported in the NALP Directory separately from the demographics grid information used for the other analyses in this report. ˛e demographics of equity ˜gures re˙ect ˜rms with multi-tier partnerships which also provided equity/ non-equity partner demographics in 2019. ˛is
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7percentage of women of color in 2017. However, at just 11.51% and 5.53% respectively, representation of people of color and women of color among counsel is still quite low and only slightly better than the percentages at the partnership level. NON˜TRADITIONAL TRACK/ STAFF ATTORNEYS Non-traditional track/sta˛ attorney positions are the only attorney positions in which women are over- represented. ˜e share of non-traditional track/sta˛ attorney positions that are held by people of color and women of color are similar to those of associate positions. Representation among women declined for the ˜rst time since NALP ˜rst began reporting data on non- traditional track/sta˝ attorney positions as a category in 2014, although women remain the majority (57.45%). ˛e percentage of people of color in non-traditional/ sta˝ attorney positions grew by 1.5 percentage points to 23.18% in 2019, the largest gain since NALP began collecting these data. ˛e percentage of women of color also increased by about half a percentage point, to 14.05% in 2019. LAWYERS OVERALL Representation of women, people of color, and women of color among lawyers as a whole was up, reaching historic highs across the board. Women of color experienced the greatest year-over-year increase, 0.65 percentage points, since NALP began collecting data by gender within each race/ethnicity category. ˛ese increases re˙ect the growth experienced across all lawyer categories Š for partners, associates, counsel, and non-traditional track/sta˝ attorneys as noted above. Although the overall ˜gure for women fell in 2010 and 2011, and again in 2015, the overall percentage for women (36.33% in 2019) has exceeded the 2009 ˜gure of 32.97% since 2014. ˛e representation of lawyers of color as a whole rose nearly nine-tenths of a percentage point in 2019, to 16.98%. Consistent with ˜ndings for women of color among partners and associates, representation of women lawyers of color as a whole reached a historic high, increasing from 8.08% in 2018 to 8.73% in 2019. (See Table 1.) SUMMER ASSOCIATES ˜e representation of women and people of color in the summer associate ranks compares much more favorably to the population of recent law school graduates and hit all-time highs in 2019. Women accounted of over half of all summer associates (52.66%) for the second year in a row. According to the American Bar Association (ABA), since 2000, the percentage of graduates of color has ranged from 20% to 31%, while women have accounted for 46% to 50% of graduates, with the Class of 2018 being a high-water mark. In 2019, 52.66% of summer associates were women, 35.26% were people of color, and 21.16% were women of color. While the demographics of summer associates are much more representative of the recent law graduate population, it should be kept in mind that these percentages are in the context of far fewer summer associates overall, with the number of summer associates o˝ by about 25% compared with 2009, despite increases in the numbers a˚er bottoming out in 2010 and 2011. ˛e number of summer associates in the NDLE was about 7,000 in 2019, up from approximately 6,900 in 2018.
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8LAWYERS WITH DISABILITIES Lawyers with disabilities (of any race or gender) are scarce, both at the associate and partner levels. ˛e NALP Directory of Legal Employers also collects information about lawyers with disabilities, though this information is much less widely reported than information on race/ethnicity and gender, making it much harder to draw de˜nitive conclusions about the representation of lawyers with disabilities. Just under half of one percent of partners (0.46%) self- reported as having a disability in 2019, down slightly from 0.52% in 2018. Previously, this percentage has hovered around approximately one-third of one percent from 2012-2016. In contrast, representation of associates with disabilities improved somewhat, from 0.46% in 2018 to 0.59% in 2019. However, these ˜gures are still small, making it diˆcult to draw any conclusions about trends going forward. Although the presence of individuals with disabilities among law school graduates is not precisely known, other NALP research suggests that between 2.5% and 3.5% of graduates self-identify as having a disability. Disability ˜gures for partners, associates, and all attorneys with disabilities by ˜rm size are reported in Table 11. LGBT LAWYERS ˜e percentage of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) lawyers has generally been trending upward over the period since 2002 when NALP ˚rst began compiling these ˚gures. While the percentage of LGBT lawyers overall was up slightly in 2019, LGBT representation among partners and other lawyers (such as counsel and sta˛ attorneys) was essentially ˝at in comparison to 2018. ˛e overall percentage of LGBT lawyers reported in 2019 increased slightly to 2.99% compared with 2.86% in 2018. However, LGBT representation among summer associates jumped over 1.1 percentage points, from 5.73% in 2018 to 6.86% in 2019. Although the percentage of LGBT lawyers was up overall, increases were not universal across lawyer types. Representation among partners and other lawyers, such as counsel and non-traditional track/sta˝ attorneys, was essentially ˙at, with the percentage of LGBT partners dropping marginally from 2.11% in 2018 to 2.07% in 2019 and the percentage for other lawyers declining a small amount from 2.37% in 2018 to 2.32% in 2019. However, associates saw an increase of about one- third of a percentage point in comparison to 2018, increasing from 3.80% in 2018 to 4.14% in 2019. ˛e percentage of oˆces reporting LGBT data has been around 90% or higher since 2008, and in 2019, 93% of oˆces reported LGBT counts. About two-thirds of these oˆces reported at least one LGBT lawyer among partners and associates in 2019. ˛e overall count in 2019 of 3,028 LGBT lawyers is up by 7.1% from 2018. Over a longer span of time, the number now is approximately 2.75 times larger than it was in the 2002 NDLE, when the data were ˜rst collected/compiled. In the 2002 NDLE, the number of LGBT lawyers reported was just over 1,100 Š less than 1% of the total lawyers represented. It took until 2012 for the overall percentage to exceed 2% and the 2019 ˜gure is now just shy of 3%. ˛e presence of LGBT lawyers continues to be highest among associates, at 4.14% (see Table 12). LGBT associates are also better represented at large law ˜rms Š with ˜rms of 701+ lawyers reporting 4.45% LGBT associates. Conversely, small ˜rms of 100 or fewer lawyers reported the highest percentage of LGBT partners in 2019, at 2.42%. Across the U.S., the percentage of LGBT summer associates continues to suggest that there is still potential for some growth in the presence of LGBT associates at these reporting ˜rms. ˛e overall ˜gure for summer associates was 6.86%, compared with 5.73% in 2018. However, there is considerable variability by ˜rm size, ranging from 3.55% in ˜rms
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