We recently welcomed a new year, but the legal profession is facing the same challenges as in years past when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. These issues were recently documented in the 2023 ABA Profile of the Legal Profession, which showed small gains in the representation of diverse legal professionals but an ongoing lag in terms of lawyers mirroring the makeup of the general U.S. population.
I share some interesting findings from the ABA’s report below and encourage lawyers to read the full profile, which ABA President Mary Smith says “provides a detailed overview of the current landscape of our profession, ensuring transparency and driving change where it is most needed.”
Growth among Asian American, Hispanic, and mixed-race attorneys
The percentage of lawyers of color has grown 10% over the past 10 years, according to the ABA Profile of the Legal Profession. Lawyers of color now make up 21% of the legal profession, almost double the number of diverse attorneys in 2013.
The biggest change has been among Asian American lawyers, who represent 6% of all U.S. lawyers in 2023 compared to 2.5% in 2021, according to the ABA National Lawyer Population Survey, which is quoted in the Profile of the Legal Profession.
This means the representation of Asian American attorneys is almost proportionate to their size in the U.S. population, which is 6.3%.
The percentage of Hispanic lawyers has also risen nationwide, according to the Lawyer Population Survey, up to 6% in 2023 from 3.7% in 2013. However, Hispanic lawyers are still underrepresented compared to their share of the U.S. population (19.1%).
As an aside, the ABA notes that the increase in Asian American and Hispanic lawyers is likely due to California beginning to report the race and ethnicity of its lawyers.
In addition, representation of mixed-race lawyers grew to 3% of all U.S. lawyers in 2023, matching their share of the U.S. population.
Continued stagnation for Black and Native American lawyers
Meanwhile, the number of Black lawyers remains stagnant. In 2013, Black lawyers made up 4.8% of the profession; that number grew to just 5% in 2023, according to the ABA Profile of the Legal Profession. In comparison, Black people represent 13.6% of the U.S. population.
Native American lawyers continue to be the smallest racial or ethnic group measured. In 2022, 0.5% of lawyers were Native American, down slightly from 0.6% a decade earlier, according to the ABA. In comparison, Native Americans make up 1.3% of the U.S. population.
And while the percentage of white lawyers has declined almost 10% in the last decade (79% in 2023 compared to 88.7% in 2013), the ABA notes that they are still overrepresented compared to their presence in the U.S. population (58.9%).
Gender, sex, and sexual orientation
Male lawyers still greatly outnumber female lawyers nationally, but the percentage of female lawyers is rising gradually.
In 2023, 39% of lawyers were women and 61% were male. While these numbers have changed drastically over the past 70 years—from 1950 to 1970 only 3% of all lawyers were women—the number of female attorneys has grown only 5% over the last decade, according to the ABA Profile of the Legal Profession.
In Illinois, roughly 60% of attorneys are male, 40% are female, and 0.1% are nonbinary, according to the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission’s 2022 Annual Report.
The representation of openly LGBTQ+ lawyers at U.S. law firms continues to rise, according to a 2022 survey conducted by the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), which was quoted in the Profile of the Legal Profession.
In 2022, 4,006 lawyers (4.2%) at U.S. firms identified as LGBTQ+. A decade earlier, NALP found that just half as many lawyers (2,105) at U.S. firms identified as LGBTQ+.
Representation among law firm summer associates who identify as LGBTQ+ is substantially higher. According to NALP, in 2022, 9.4% of all summer associates identified as LGBTQ+, up from 3.5% in 2012.
Diversity in leadership
Diversity among law firm partners has grown for the 31st consecutive year, according to NALP, but the growth is slow.
In 1991, NALP found just over 2% of all partners were lawyers of color and almost 11% were women. In 2022, people of color made up 11.4% of partners, and women accounted for almost 27%.
“That means that in just over 30 years, the representation of people of color at the partner level has increased by less than 10 percentage points and women by less than 16 points,” the NALP report said. “At this rate, we still won’t be anywhere near parity in another 30 years.”
Asian American attorneys were the highest represented among law firm partners (4.6%) followed by Hispanic lawyers (3%), Black lawyers (2.3%), and multiracial lawyers (1.3%).
Representation among Native American/Alaska Native or Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander attorneys at the partnership level remains low, at 0.17% and 0.07% respectively.
In addition, women of color make up just over 4% of all partners “a figure that remains abysmally low,” according to NALP.
Age and Ability
Lawyers, on average, are older than “most professions,” according to the ABA Profile of the Legal Profession. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that almost 14% of all U.S. attorneys are 65 and older compared to roughly 7% of all U.S. workers.
And the median age for attorneys is getting older. In 2022, 46 was the median age for all U.S. lawyers, seven years older than the median age of 39 in 1980.
In Illinois, the number of attorneys who are 70 or older has grown significantly, up from roughly 3% in 2018 to almost 10% in 2022, according to the ARDC. Almost 50% of Illinois lawyers are over 50.
Why? The ABA Profile of the Legal Profession points out that few lawyers are younger than 25, likely given law school and bar requirements, and lawyers tend not to retire at 65.
Just 1.4% of all lawyers surveyed reported having a disability, according to the NALP data. While this number remains low, more lawyers have reported having a disability in recent years.
For example, in 2022, 1.6% of associates reported having a disability. This is roughly 1% higher than the percentage five years earlier.
Advancing diversity in the legal profession
The recruitment and retention of lawyers from traditionally underrepresented communities remains a struggle for the legal profession.
Firms and legal organizations have employed many methods to help—recruitment and pipeline programs, diverse hiring practices, and diversity and inclusion policies, just to name a few—each with varying degrees of success.
In Illinois, the Supreme Court has taken action. In 2017, the Illinois Supreme Court mandated that all Illinois lawyers take one hour of diversity and inclusion CLE as part of their professional responsibility CLE requirements.
Former Chief Justice Lloyd A. Karmeier (Ret.) noted in the press release that the requirement’s goal is to “foster a profession that is both healthier and more respectful of the full range of perspectives and experiences present in our multicultural society.”
The Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism provides free online and in-person CLEs on a range of contemporary DEI topics, to help lawyers meet this requirement and advance the Court’s goal.
Take a DEI CLE: www.2civility.org/education-cle/free-online-cle
Request a DEI CLE speaker: https://www.2civility.org/education-cle/#tabs-3
Staying up to date on issues impacting the legal profession is vital to your success. Subscribe here to get the Commission’s weekly news delivered to your inbox.
Illinois Bar Associations Pledge to Promote Diversity and Unity in the Legal Profession
The post New Year, Same Diversity Challenges in the Legal Profession appeared first on 2Civility.