San Francisco, Seattle Have Greatest Percentage of Part-Time Lawyers
Are you looking for part-time work at a law firm? The option is more limited if you are an entry-level associate, and you’ll have fewer compatriots, on a percentage basis, if you live in Birmingham, Ala.; Las Vegas; and Nashville, Tenn. And most of your fellow part-timers will be female.
Those are some of the statistics compiled by NALP for its 2009-2010 Directory of Legal Employers, with listings for 1,475 mostly large law offices, according to a press release by the group for career professionals.
In 2009, 5.9 percent of lawyers were working part-time, and 73 percent of them were women, NALP found.
Nearly 98 percent of law offices in NALP’s directory allow part-time work, at least on a case-by-case basis, compared to 86 percent 15 years ago. But of those offices with a part-time option, 53 percent barred entry-level associates from using the arrangement.
Lawyers working in the “other” category, which includes of counsel and staff attorneys, make up the largest percentage of part-timers in law offices. A full 20.7 percent of lawyers in the “other” category work part-time, compared to 3.5 percent of partners and 5 percent of associates.
The percentage of part-timers varies considerably with the city where they work. Part-timers make up only 1.3 percent of the lawyers working at law firms in Birmingham, 3.5 percent in Houston, 2.5 percent in Las Vegas, 3.5 percent in Miami, 2.4 percent in Nashville, 3 percent in New Orleans, 3.5 percent in Tampa/St. Petersburg, and 3.9 percent in Wilmington, Del.
At the other end of the scale, part-timers make up 7.6 percent of the lawyers in Baltimore; 7.3 percent in the Boston area; 7 percent in Denver; 7.3 percent in Milwaukee; 8.9 percent in Minneapolis; 7.2 percent in Philadelphia; 7.9 percent in the Portland, Ore., area; 8.6 percent in Richmond, Va.; 7.4 percent in San Diego; 9.3 percent in San Francisco; 9.3 percent in the Seattle area; 7.4 percent in St. Louis; and 7.5 percent in Washington, D.C.
