The American legal market's contraction resulted in a dearth of legal jobs, and a flood of attorneys willing to fill them. But a new report brings to light the disproportionate impact that the financial crisis had on African-American and other minority attorneys.
"Overall, big firms shed 6 percent of their attorneys between 2008 and 2009 -- and, amid the bloodletting, lost 9 percent of their minority lawyers," reports Emily Barker at The American Lawyer. The periodical based its findings on survey responses from 191 large law firms, seeking employment data in both years, and just released "The Diversity Scorecard 2010," available here.
In sum, the survey found: [Brackets, link in original.]
The data shows that, while minority lawyers as a whole lost ground, not all groups were affected equally. In proportional terms, African-Americans lost the most: the percentage of all black lawyers fell by 13 percent (462 lawyers), with the number of black nonpartners sliding by a startling 16 percent. Translation: Almost one in six African-American nonpartners left the surveyed firms in the space of a year without being replaced [see "In Retreat"].
In raw numbers, Asian-Americans dropped the most, by 9 percent (556 lawyers). The number of Asian-American nonpartners dropped by 11 percent, while the number of partners rose by 6 percent. As for Hispanic lawyers, their numbers dropped by 9 percent overall (282 lawyers). Hispanic nonpartners fell by 13 percent; partners rose by 3 percent.
The declines in minority attorneys were not evenly spread across firms. About a third saw no decrease, while 31 firms saw decreases of 20 percent or more. The biggest decliners in percentage, including Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson; Gibbons; Kilpatrick Stockton; and Milbank, lost more than a third of their minority attorneys. (Gibbons and Kilpatrick say they remain strongly committed to their diversity programs; Fried Frank did not respond to a request for comment.) While general head count also went down at almost all 31 of those firms, in every case it was outpaced by the percentage drop in minority lawyers.
It would seem logical that the losses in the minority lawyer population are linked to the widespread job cuts at large law firms in 2008 and 2009. But we can't draw that conclusion definitively without collecting a demographic breakdown of all of the attorneys fired for economic reasons -- a project beyond the scope of this survey. However, our data shows a strong correlation between firms that drastically cut overall head count and firms that saw significant losses of minority lawyers.
[Image via fxp.]
Post new comment