Biglaw, Money, Partner Issues, Women's Issues

From The Obvious Files: Male Biglaw Partners Make More Than Female Ones

Are you surprised?

onOctober 13, 2016 at 12:57 PMOctober 17, 2016 at 8:30 PM

Beautiful caucasian business woman is checking empty wallet. This sh*t isn’t even surprising anymore. Amid a backdrop of lawsuits filed by women partners at Biglaw firms alleging pay discrimination comes a new survey from Major, Lindsey & Africa that indicates male partners average a whopping 44% more in compensation than their female colleagues. Male partners are averaging $949,000 while female partners make about $659,000.

The inequity is largely masked in their objective-seeming, origination-based compensation, as noted by Law.com:

Much of the inequity is due to origination, said Jeffrey Lowe, managing partner in Major, Lindsey & Africa’s Washington, D.C., office and author of the study. On the survey, male partners reported average origination of $2.59 million, and female partners $1.73 million. Origination and working attorney receipts have become the main determinants of partner compensation, he said.

“That’s the crux of the issue: Why are men generating more business than women?” Lowe said. “Is there some boys club aspect or not?”

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From Pilot and Above The Law

Though it should be noted the disparity does seem to slowly be decreasing — in the 2014 survey, men made 47% more — it is also true that dissatisfaction with compensation is growing among women as well.

The percentage of women partners who are dissatisfied with their compensation has grown, according to the Major, Lindsey & Africa survey. In 2016, 8 percent of women said they were not at all satisfied with their compensation, compared to 5 percent in 2014. Nineteen percent of the women partners said they were not very satisfied. But 27 percent said they were very satisfied, which showed an increase from 23 percent in 2014. Forty-six percent said they were somewhat satisfied.

It may seem like the very pinnacle of first-world problems to complain about a high six-figure salary, and to some extent that is true — this issue will never be as poignant as more dire examples of inequality. But the sheer scale of the shortchanging here really drives home how much work remains to be done.

Male Partners Make 44 Percent More Than Women, Survey Shows [Law.com]
2016 Partner Compensation Survey [Major, Lindsey & Africa]