Women Lawyers: Retention and Promotion

The National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) and NAWL Foundation recently released their third national survey of that status of women in law firms. The results are not encouraging.

We know the drill - women have been graduating from law schools at the same rate as men for over two decades. Yet we still find:

• Only 16% of equity partners are women.
• On average, only 15% of a firm's highest governing committee members are women (and 15% of the national's largest firms have no women on their highest governing committee).
  
• Only 6% of firm managing partners are women.
  
• From associate to equity partners, male lawyers out-earn female lawyers - at the equity level the difference in average median compensation is almost $90,000.

And, as is almost always the case, the numbers are bleaker for women of color. While 11% of firm associates are women of color:

• only 3% of non-equity partners are women of color
• only 1.4% of equity partners are women of color

And note: while men of color make up only 8% of firm associates, they are 6% of the non-equity partners and 4% of equity partners. Even though there are more women of color at the associate level, men of color outpace the women into firm leadership positions.