US summer associate class ‘most diverse ever’
The number of summer associates at US law firms was the most diverse ever recorded, but the levels of diversity continue to lag at more senior levels, according to a new report.
The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) released its annual Report on Diversity at US Law Firms on January 12 based on information from the 2021-2022 NALP Directory of Legal Employers (NDLE).
According to the report, the percentage of summer associates of colour grew by nearly five percentage points in a single year, rising from 36% in 2020 to 41%.
This finding represents the largest rise since NALP began tracking this data in 1993, with the milestone attributed to the rise in the percentage of summer associates who are women of colour, which grew by three percentage points to 25.14% in 2021
Women made up more than half of all summer associates for the fourth year in a row, and the proportion of LGBTQ summer associates increased to 8.41%, also a historic high.
Commenting on the report, NALP executive director James Leipold said: “Without doubt, this summer associate class was the most diverse ever measured in every way, and it holds the promise of a law firm world that is truly more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.”
But he cautioned that obstacles remained when it came to retaining and advancing the careers of diverse candidates, as the report noted that equity partners in multi-tier law firms continue to be disproportionately white men.
Slight gains at senior level
In 2021, just 22 % of equity partners were women and only 9% were people of colour.
Despite slight gains in 2021, just over 4% of all partners are women of colour, while Black women and Latinx women each continue to represent less than 1% of all partners in US law firms.
In an article for WIPR, Lenovo’s executive director of global litigation, Jennifer Salinas noted that: “the historical lack of emphasis on diversifying the legal profession has resulted in its being one of the least diverse professions in the US.”
She argued that while firms have made concerted efforts to recruit and hire more diverse associate attorney classes, the percentages of diverse attorneys progressing to partnership or leadership levels at firms still lags far behind both diverse candidate hiring statistics and law school graduation rates.
“This means that while there are more diverse attorneys entering the workplace each year, there is not a corresponding increase in diverse law firm partners. Part of the answer to correcting this wrong is to empower diverse professionals by creating an inclusive environment that exists across all levels of a business,” she urged.
Challenges remain
As NALP’s Leipold noted: “The challenge for the industry is to retain, train, develop, and promote this talented and diverse pool of new lawyers so that five years from now the associate ranks as a whole reflect similar diversity and representation, and 10 or 15 years from now we can celebrate a partnership class that is similarly diverse.”
Other challenges include the representation of Black lawyers in the legal profession.
“Although the percentages of Black partners, associates, and lawyers overall increased in 2021, the representation of Black lawyers in law firms still trails that of Asian and Latinx lawyers and those gaps have widened over time,” he added.
Leopold pointed out that in 2021, women made up just 26% of all partners, and Black women and Latinx women each continued to represent less than 1% of all partners in US law firms.
“The 2021 law firm diversity numbers are a cause for celebration, but also a reminder of the hard work that remains to be done,” Leipold added.
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