Biglaw, Minority Issues, Partner Issues, Women's Issues

The Top 10 Geographic Markets Where Women And Minorities Succeed In Making Partner

Diversity and inclusion have a long way to go in our industry, but these markets show signs of progress.

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Business on the move“Not at all nervous as he dug to the surface / Tarnished gold chain is what he loosened up the earth with / He used his mouth as a shovel to try and hollow it / And when he couldn’t dirt-spit, he swallowed it.” — Lupe Fiasco

According to the 2014-2015 NALP Directory of Legal Employers report, in 2014, women accounted for 21.1% of partners in the nation’s major firms, and minorities accounted for 7.3% of the partners in these firms. In 2013, the figures were 20.2% and 7.1%, respectively. This study includes attorney race and gender information for over 111,000 partners, associates, and other lawyers in 1,056 offices, and for almost 6,300 summer associates in 758 offices nationwide. So where in our country do women and minorities succeed the most in making partner?

Here are the top 10 markets with the highest percentage of women partners (with percentage of women partners indicated parenthetically):

  1. Denver (28.1%)
  2. Detroit area (26%)
  3. San Francisco (25.7%)
  4. Seattle area (25.4%)
  5. Minneapolis (24.9%)
  6. Miami (24.4%)
  7. Ft. Lauderdale/W. Palm Beach (24%)
  8. Wilmington (23.8%)
  9. Milwaukee (23%)
  10. Portland, OR area (23%)

Here are the top 10 markets with the highest percentage of minority partners (with percentage of minority partners indicated parenthetically):

  1. Miami (29.5%)
  2. San Jose area (15.3%)
  3. Los Angeles area (13.8%)
  4. Orange Co., CA (13.2%)
  5. Austin (12%)
  6. San Francisco (11.9%)
  7. Houston (9.9%)
  8. Seattle area (9.4%)
  9. San Diego (9.3%)
  10. Northern Virginia (8.5%)

We know that diversity returns a premium on every conceivable level. So what makes markets like Denver, Detroit, Seattle, and the Florida region better than average at promoting gender equality in the partnership ranks? What makes Miami, the California area, Austin, and Seattle better than average at promoting diversity in the partnership ranks? Why are there considerable variations in measures of racial diversity amongst partners in the 40 cities represented in the directory?

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One reason, no doubt, is that there is a difference in the minority representation within the general population of these various markets. However, minority representation within law firms is not necessarily parallel to, and has never accurately reflected, minority representation within the overall population of an area. Furthermore, normalizing the data so that we can properly evaluate the disparity in racial representation amongst partners in different regions still fails to address why there is such a noticeable discrepancy in female representation amongst partners in these regions.

Hopefully we are not one hundred years away from gender equality in the partnership ranks of the legal profession. Diversity and inclusion have a long way to go in our industry, but at least some markets are beginning to make headway in these areas. We are now in the fourth quarter of 2015. What has your firm done this year to promote diversity and inclusion in the legal profession? More importantly, what do you plan to do to address these issues?

Renwei Chung is a 2L at Southern Methodist University School of Law. He has an undergraduate degree from Michigan State University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He is the author of The Golden Rule: How Income Inequality Will Ruin America (affiliate link). He has been randomly blogging about anything and everything at Live Your Truth since 2008. He was born in California, raised in Michigan, and lives in Texas. He has a yellow lab named Izza and enjoys old-school hip hop, the NBA and stand up paddleboarding (SUP). He is really interested in startups, entrepreneurship, and innovative technologies. You can contact Renwei by email at projectrenwei@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter (@renweichung), or connect with him on LinkedIn.

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