Minority Women = Snowball In Hell

A NALP report confirms what we see everyday: minority women partners barely exist. The National Law Journal reports:

Minority women remain the most underrepresented group among law firm partners, according to the report. They currently make up 1.88% of partners at law firms. By contrast, the report found that minority men make up 4.21% of partners, and women overall account for 18.74% of partners.

That. Is. Embarrassing.

Before everybody explains away the numbers by saying “there aren’t as many minority women in the pipeline,” note that there are a lot of minority women downstream:

In 2008, 45.42 percent of summer associates were women, 24.04 percent were minorities and 12.99 percent were minority women. In the associate ranks, 45.34 percent are women, 19.11 percent are minorities and 10.74 percent are minority women.

Many minority women start off on the Biglaw path, but they leave. To have babies? Not according to the ABA:

A 2006 study by the ABA Commission on Women, “Visible Invisibility: Women of Color in Law Firms,” concluded that women of color are leaving the profession in droves because they are the victims of an uninterrupted cycle of institutional discrimination. Many women responding to the ABA survey said they felt they were denied the same opportunities to succeed as their male and nonminority counterparts.

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More numbers after the jump.


The study brings up interesting geographical differences. In Los Angeles and San Francisco minority women have double the partnership representation:

Los Angeles and San Francisco show the highest representation of women, minorities, and minority women among both partners and associates. Minorities account for 12.03% and 12.59% of partners in these cities, respectively, and women account for 19.42% and 23.17% of partners, respectively. About 4% of partners are minority women. Firms in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, New York, Seattle, and Washington, DC, also are close to or exceed national averages on most measures.

4% is still pretty anemic, but twice the national average makes one wonder what the heck is going on in cities that are below average.

Firms in over 40% of the cities are below average on most or all measures and considerably so with respect to minorities. Cities in this category include Charlotte, Grand Rapids, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Raleigh/Durham, Richmond, Salt Lake City, and St. Louis. … These findings reflect in part considerable contrasts in the population as a whole in these areas. … But minority representation within law firms does not always parallel minority representation within the overall population of an area.

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NALP provides city and state breakdowns here (scroll down to tables).

The focus for Biglaw firms should be on retention. While we know that many law firms rely on high attrition rates to make room for the next crop of superstars, minority women are leaving at higher rates than their white male counterparts. Those attrition rates should be the same. But I imagine making it in Biglaw is tough enough without having to deal with an “uninterrupted cycle of institutional discrimination.”

Solve the institutional discrimination and sexism, and you probably solve this problem. Don’t forget to pick up your Nobel Peace Prize on your way to the comments thread.

Number of women, minority attorneys at big firms ticks up — but not in partnership ranks [National Law Journal]

Only 2% of BigLaw Partners are Minority Women, Study Says [ABA Journal]

Law Firm Diversity Demographics Slow to Change [NALP]