Black Law Interns In Decline Under Pressure From Conservatives

The share of Black summer associates at US law firms shrank to its lowest level in more than a decade against the backdrop of a conservative push to end race- and gender-based preferences in school admissions and hiring, including a specific effort against legal internships.

The summer of 2025 marked the third straight year in which the proportion of Black summer associates declined, representing a 3.5 percentage point drop since a peak of about 12% in 2022, according to an annual study released Tuesday by the National Association for Law Placement. Overall, the proportion of summer associates of color fell by 5.5 percentage points, to about 38%, the lowest since 2020.

“People are overly cautious and it’s causing them to over correct,” said Nikia Gray, executive director of NALP, an industry association focused on supporting legal careers. “It’s the summer associate pool that tells you what’s to come, and predicts what’s going to happen.”

The American Alliance for Equal Rights, founded by conservative legal strategist Edward Blum, sued a pair of law firms in 2023 over programs that offered scholarships or other programs that were based on the applicants’ race, alleging they were discriminatory. The law firms, and several others in subsequent months, agreed to open up programs to all applicants. Another Blum group, Students for Fair Admissions, was instrumental in the June 2023 lawsuit that overturned affirmative action in college admissions.

President Donald Trump’s second administration has renewed pressure on employers by targeting specific law firms over their DEI practices. A wide-ranging probe into top law firms’ hiring practices by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has prompted many to change practices. Although the inquiry was closed last month, six law firms had already struck deals that included agreements to back off diversity programs and give free legal services

NALP warned that ongoing scrutiny also effected the level of participating by law firms, as 230 fewer law offices, representing about 47 firms and 31,000 lawyers, provided demographic data for 2025 compared with 2024. The reluctance to share data may have had some impact on the results, but the overall trends seem to be accurate, the group said.

Still, the study showed emerging shifts across demographic groups. Among lawyers employed at the firms, women reached a record high proportion among partners and associates, even as their share among lawyers overall declined slightly, NALP found. For non-White lawyers, the share of partners was flat as the share declined overall among the total group, the data showed. The share of LGBTQ lawyers also declined slightly.

The decline in Black legal interns is likely to intensify in coming years, NALP’s Gray said. The first class of law students to enroll after the end of affirmative action will become eligible for summer associates programs next year.

“This a wild time and we will see how this plays out,” she said. “We know what we’re going to expect to see over the next couple of years and it’s going to be a real disparate impact on these students of color, and particularly Black students.”

It appears law firms have taken the crackdown seriously, legal strategist Blum said in an interview. His staff has been closely monitoring fellowships and other programs for evidence of discriminatory criteria and hasn’t found any programs that would currently be considered “actionable,” he said.

“We are always looking, be sure that’s clear,” he said. “We are always on the hunt.”

To contact the reporter on this story:
Jeff Green in Southfield, Michigan at jgreen16@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Abha Bhattarai at abhattarai18@bloomberg.net

Tim Quinson

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