Economic realities and gender (in)equality in the legal profession

Hannah Brenner

The contemporary economic realities facing the legal profession affect multiple constituencies including most obviously, lawyers and clients. Critical analysis of the breadth of these issues, however, would not be complete, however, without significant attention directed at the site of preparing future lawyers for practice.  Often, discussions of the legal profession begin at the place where lawyers enter the world of practice, ignoring law schools as part of this continuum. Many thanks to Renee Newman Knake and the Legal Ethics Forum for addressing these issues vis a vis this innovative symposium.

The impact of the current economic realities is even more complex when considered alongside the existing gender (in)equality in the legal profession, yet little attention is paid to these issues in tandem. Despite significant progress toward eliminating explicit gender bias, women lawyers continue to face barriers and obstacles to their advancement.  The result is a profession in which female lawyers are under-represented in positions of leadership and power and under-compensated for performing the same work as their male counterparts.

The National Association of Women Lawyers’ National Survey on Retention and Promotion of Women in Law Firms offers a powerful overview of these gender dynamics at the nation’s top law firms. Highlights include data reflecting the low percentage of women in leadership positions (for example, for the past six years running, only 5% of firms have had a woman in a managing partner position). The report also illuminates the growing use of contract and staff attorneys (presumably related to the economic realities of law practice), positions which are not partnership-track, and which are more frequently held by women.  While it is important to pay attention to these gendered realities, we must also explore how we are preparing students to thrive in the legal profession and whether our female students are accessing opportunities critical to their success. A study by Ms. JD reveals, for example, that the percentage of women occupying law review editor in chief positions hovers around 33%.  Finally, the NAWL survey and recent Catalyst research (analyzing data collected by the American Bar Association), demonstrates a decline in the number of women entering and graduating from law school. The downward trend is also captured in the gender breakdown of first year associates as reflected by both NAWL and NALP.  While these changes may be characterized as slight, they nonetheless warrant careful attention, particularly in light of national trends in declining law school applications and the ongoing challenges facing students seeking legal employment.

Preparing our students for legal practice in the dual context of the current economic realities and ongoing gender (in)equality in the profession begs the conceptualization of new strategies. Educating students about the dynamics of the profession in which they will be a part is a start.

I address these issues, and others, like the gendered division of labor among law student leaders, on a small scale in my seminar, Gender, Power, Law & Leadership at Michigan State University College of Law. This seminar inspired the creation of an extra-curricular women’s leadership initiative currently being piloted at my institution that has at its core the goal of providing female student leaders with the necessary skills needed to help identify gender bias, ultimately equipping them with the tools and resources necessary to survive and thrive in their future legal careers.  Perhaps this symposium might encourage further dialogue on how to respond to these intertwined issues.