Conventional wisdom would have us believe that women lawyers step off the Biglaw hamster wheel after just a couple of years in order to have families, gather in herds, and talk about diapers and whatnot. Research from ALM Intelligence suggests that this is a false narrative. Rather, the proportion of women in law firms erodes in a gradual and steady manner over time. According the ALM data, women one year out of law school make up 44 percent of the Biglaw population, while women 25 years out compose only 25 percent of the large law firm population.
However, there is an anomalous subgroup: graduates of elite law schools. Women graduates of top schools do have a sudden drop in percentage after the three to five years post-graduation period which women from lower-tiered schools do not. ALM dubs this phenomenon the “Elite Retreat.”
Check out this graph below. (Women from U.S. News Top 10 schools are represented by the orange line):
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ALM does not offer a hypothesis for this apparent greater tendency on the part of elite graduates to leave the law earlier.
Brian Dalton is the director of research for Breaking Media. Feel free to email him with any questions or comments.