Law firms are still hiring and promoting far fewer minority and women lawyers into partnerships compared with White men, an American Bar Association report shows.
White attorneys were almost twice as likely to reach partnership ranks than members of other racial groups, according to the ABA’s third Model Diversity Survey, based on pre-pandemic data. Male lawyers were twice as likely to be become partners as women.
The disparities “cross firm sizes and regions,” said Michelle Behnke, chair of the ABA’s Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession. Implicit bias is to blame rather than “malice aforethought,” she said. ...