Increased awareness and focus on gender disparity at law firms has done little over the last year to make gains within the profession, especially at its highest levels, reports Law360 in its annual glass ceiling survey. Female representation at private law firms remains paltry and with the radical reorganization of home and work life as a result of the global pandemic, even these slight gains are imperiled.
Law360’s report provides an in-depth account of representation at firms countrywide, and the prognosis is not good. According to the press release, “gender parity [remains] virtually at a standstill” and with all the developments since the survey, the outlook for the site’s 2020 report looks little better.
With completed surveys from more than 300 firms across the country, including 87 of the top 100 biggest firms, the numbers look similar to years past. In 2019 women accounted for 37% of all attorneys and only 25% of partners. More distressingly, female representation in entry-level positions moved up by less than 1% when compared to the 2018 survey. As the press release notes, this fact contrasts so greatly with the enrollment numbers at law schools, where women have been at least 40% of the matriculated student population for decades.
Adding to the outlook are similar numbers from the New York State Bar Association which notes that women as lead counselors remains essentially unchanged over the last three years. Additionally, in particular areas of law, especially those practicing at Patent Trial and Appeal Board, the disparity is even greater, with only 10% of those attorneys being women.
As we have noted time and again at the Berke-Weiss Law blog, the pandemic is having a profound effect on women’s participation in the workforce at all levels, from domestic workers all the way to white-shoe firms. For the first time since the BLS has kept employment statistics on women in the workforce, women outnumbered men in the unemployment rolls and there has been significant pressure for women to leave the workforce to resume full-time home care work, which Law360 worries may affect their 2020 survey.
