Record numbers of women, people of color, and LGBTQ lawyers were represented in U.S. law firms in 2024, according to a new report from NALP, an association focused on the advancement of law careers. But the report also suggests that growth in the number of Black or African American lawyers specifically may be “sluggish in the coming years” due to declining representation in summer associate positions.
And, in looking at diverse groups overall, the 2024 NALP Report on Diversity in U.S. Law Firms found that while diversity has increased at the summer associate and associate level, it continues to lag at the partner level.
NALP Director Nikia Gray emphasized in a press release that associates of color become partners at significantly lower rates than white associates, leading to a “nearly 20 percentage point disparity between this cohort’s representation at the partnership level compared to the associate level.”
Gray said that, at the current rate, it will take almost 27 years for the representation of lawyers of color in the partnership level to reach the representation we see of lawyers of color at the associate level today.
Growth and backsliding at the associate level
The report, based on information from the NALP Directory of Legal Employers, found that the number of associates of color and women associates both reached new highs in 2024.
Associates of color represented 31.46% of all associates, a 1.3 percentage point increase from 2023. This increase can be attributed to growth in the number of women of color associates, which rose by 1.2 points to 18.76%.
Overall, women made up 51.62% of all associates, a 1.3 percentage point increase from 2023. Women made up a majority of all associates for the first time in 2023.
Summer associates of color made up 43.07% of all summer associates, a new high. This growth can be attributed to Asian summer associates, which increased by 1.8 percentage points, and multiracial summer associates, which increased by 0.5 percentage points.
Conversely, the number of Black or African American summer associates decreased by 1.5 percentage points.
Additionally, while 12.92% of summer associates identify as LGBTQ, this hasn’t translated to the legal profession as a whole, as only 5.13% of lawyers overall identify as LGBTQ.
Incremental growth for diverse talent at partner level
Equity partners at U.S. multi-tier law firms are overwhelmingly likely to be white men, according to NALP’s report. In 2024, less than a quarter of equity partners were women and only 10.2% were people of color.
However, the percentage of women partners and partners of color did increase incrementally in 2024. Women grew by 1.1 percentage points to 28.83% of all partners (equity and non-equity) and partners of color grew by 0.7 percentage points to 12.73%. This increase marks two consecutive years of small but record-breaking growth for women partners, according to the report.
And, for the first time, women of color represented more than 5% of all partners.
“The overarching story in NALP’s 2024 Report on Diversity in U.S. Law Firms is once again one of slow, incremental, and mostly positive, progress. However, this year there was also the suggestion that our pipeline of diverse talent is increasingly fragile,” Gray said in the report.
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