Percentage of African-American associates continues to decline

The percentage of African-American associates at law firms has declined each of the last six years, a trend NALP Executive Director James Leipold calls “distressing.”

The National Association of Legal Placement released its latest demographic findings Thursday in which the group found women and African-Americans show declines in representation at major U.S. law firms.

While the number of minority associates has increased since 2010, the percentage of African-American associates has been declining since 2009 from 4.66 percent to 3.95 percent. NALP attributes the uptick in the overall number of associates to the increases in Asian and Hispanic associates.

NALP noted the number of female associates has remained essentially flat since 2013.

This year, the representation of women and minority associates increased slightly over 2014.

“During most of the 23 years that NALP has been compiling this information, law firms had made steady, though very slow, incremental progress in increasing the presence of women and minorities in both the partner and associate ranks. In 2015, that slow upward trend continued for partners, with minorities accounting for 7.52 percent of partners in the nation’s major firms, and women accounting for 21.46 percent of the partners in these firms, up from 7.33 percent and 21.05 percent, respectively in 2014,” NALP says in a release.

“Nonetheless, over a period of over twenty years — NALP first compiled this information in 1993 — the total change has been marginal at best. In 1993 minorities accounted for 2.55 percent of partners and women accounted for 12.27 percent of partners. At just 2.55 percent of partners in 2015, minority women continue to be the most dramatically underrepresented group at the partnership level, a pattern that holds across all firm sizes and most jurisdictions.”

Leipold said it is troubling to see the numbers for women and African-American associates seemingly reversing course.

“2015 marks the sixth year of decline in the representation of Black associates, and while the percentage decrease is small, the overall number itself was small to begin with, so any decline is significant, and the trend is distressing. For women, too, after years of small gains, the pattern of flat to declining representation among associates in law firms is disturbing,” he said in the release.

“Representation for women and minorities at the partnership level remains small, but at least the trends remain positive, with firms continuing to make small annual incremental gains. Nonetheless, future gains are jeopardized by the shrinking pool at the associate level, and it is clear that measuring overall levels of diversity within law firms is inadequate without also looking at representation by specific race and ethnicity. It is also important to remember that the story varies tremendously firm by firm and city by city, and while there are a small number of jurisdictions where overall levels of law firm lawyer diversity exceed the national figures, there are far more where diversity continues to lag considerably, and where little progress has been seen year to year,” Leipold concluded.

The release and numbers compiled by NALP can be viewed on NALP’s website.