Women Exceed 50% of Law Firm Associates for First Time

Women make up more than 50% of law firm associates, the first time they achieved that threshold in the 32 years the National Association of Law Placement has been tracking the data.

Women associates have steadily made progress in joining associate ranks over the last five years. They made up nearly 46% of associates in 2018, according to NALP. The report also shows women make up nearly 40% of all attorneys at firms in 2023, the highest percentage NALP has tracked.

“It’s important to acknowledge we are making progress,” NALP’s executive director, Nikia Gray, said in an interview. “We’re achieving some results but it’s nowhere near the results we need to be making.”

The report based on surveys of 812 US law offices show that while firms are seeing their most diverse workforces in three decades, their progress on diversity, equity and inclusion remains “excruciatingly slow.”

Associates of color made up over 30% of firm’s associate classes last year, a 1.8 percentage point boost, the largest year-over-year increase NALP has measured for the group. The percentage of summer associates of color declined for the first time since 2017 though is still 10 points higher than recorded rates from six years ago, the report said.

Law firms are struggling to keep up their DEI momentum that began after the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020. As firms made moves to meet client and public diversity demands, they were put on notice by DEI critics after the Supreme Court axed affirmative action in June 2023, prompting worries that less-diverse law schools could result.

Firms received letters from congressional leaders and state attorneys general threatening potential legal action over their DEI initiatives. Some firms, including Perkins Coie, faced lawsuits attacking their associate-recruiting diversity programs.

The DEI backlash is troubling, said Michael Gerstenzang, managing partner of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. The firm’s long-term top business imperative is to be effective on DEI matters internally, he said.

“For law firm success in DEI, they have to focus on recruitment, development and promotion into senior roles,” Gerstenzang said.

While attrition from associate to partner levels in Big Law is typical, lawyers of color and women associates see higher levels of attrition than their male counterparts.

NALP’s report describes gains for women and partners of color as “minimal at best.” As they make gains at the associate level, women of color make up less than 5% of partners, the report found. It “remains abysmally low due to the significant underrepresentation of both women and people of color at the partnership level,” the report said.

The promotion environment is not equitable for all associates, Gray said.

“Women are not getting the support they need throughout their career to make it to partnership,” she said.