BigLaw Practice May Be Less Attractive to Women, Expert Says
The percentage of women lawyers in the nation’s 250 largest law firms has declined, and one expert suggests the reason may be that BigLaw is becoming less attractive.
Women associates and partners made up 29.2 percent of lawyers in the top firms, down from 32 percent in 2006 and 30 percent last year, the National Law Journal reports. The percentage of women declined slightly each year after 2006, when the NLJ first started collecting gender data for the top 250 law firms.
Jessie Kornberg, executive director of Ms. JD, offered one possible reason for the decline: Law practice is becoming less attractive to women, she told the NLJ. In her view, big law firms have not been doing a good job retaining women and using their talent. “There starts to be very little reason to stick around,” she said.
“When there’s no improvement to point to and prominent women are talking about opting out, those are discouraging messages being sent to women,” Kornberg said.
Stephanie Scharf, president of the National Association of Women Lawyers Foundation, identified other reasons for the declining percentages. The recession resulted in more associate than partner layoffs, and more women are congregated in associate than partner ranks, she said.
Also, she said, lateral hiring and a reliance on staff lawyers—who are mostly females—have reduced the percentage of women partners and associates. A NAWL report elaborates. It questions whether law firm changes that created more stratification of lawyers have created a “pink ghetto” of women lawyers in the lower ranks.
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