Despite much progress and initiatives, the legal profession is still predominantly male-dominated. While workplace conditions have been dramatically improved over the past few decades, women lawyers still face several challenges. From dissatisfaction in the workplace to ethics to a lack of support and opportunities at their law firms, women lawyers leave their positions at an increasingly high rate. Despite an equal number of men and women graduating from law school, practice retention rates for women significantly need to catch up to their male counterparts.

Women are Leaving—But Where Are They Going?

The COVID pandemic may have exacerbated many individuals leaving their jobs, but women lawyers were leaving the workforce even before the pandemic. According to a recent Leopard Solutions study, women at the peak of their careers are leaving the top 200 law firms — and not returning.

Starting Strong but Falling Behind

Looking at college admissions, men and women started off on equal footing. The National Association of Women in Law in 2020 indicated over 50% of law students are women —and women are quickly gaining ranks at the associate level. Not only were there more women entering law school, but they were also actually outnumbering male students. The trend did not change, as indicated by Leopard Solutions 2021 study on law student hiring by Top 200 firms. Women composed 53% of 2021 new graduate hires compared to their counterparts. However, once attorneys move past entry and associate-level roles, women in senior law roles fall short. Leveling up to partner status is considered a significant milestone, enabling more responsibility and an equity stake in the firm's profits. But when it comes to leadership roles, women are not advancing at the same rate as their male peers — and the difference is getting larger.

Not only are there fewer women partners than men, but the number of women being promoted to partners has widened. In 2019 the variance between men and women partners was 29.9 percent, and that number will grow to 34.1 percent by 2021.

Pay Disparities

Salary is one of the most significant contributing factors to workforce dissatisfaction; compensation gaps grow for every step that women ascend the ladder. Beginning with entry-level jobs, women are paid less—as much as 78% less when the partner level is reached. In fact, from 2005 to 2020, the gender of the most highly compensated women attorneys dropped from 8% to 2%. Further, the average compensation of male partners significantly outpaces that of their female peers — $1,130,000 vs. $784,000.

Hostile Work Environments

While it may be easy to blame family obligations for women leaving their law careers, that is only one of the reasons cited. Besides gender bias and unequal pay, many women lawyers are subjected to hostile work environments.

A recent situation at a Cleveland law firm went viral after a partner sent a female colleague a disparaging text when she announced she was departing the firm following her maternity leave. The text questioned what the woman was doing on her leave while being paid by the firm. After the events, the attorney who made the controversial remarks was released from the firm.

What Can Firms Do to Build an Equitable and Diverse Workforce

Lower pay, hostile work environments, and poor life-work balance resonate across women attorneys leaving law firms — making it less likely for them to return to the workforce. Almost 75 percent of the women attorneys polled by Leopard Solutions who had already left the workforce indicated they were “very unlikely” to return to a law firm. And for those still working, over 50 percent indicated they were somewhat or very likely to leave within the next five years.

Careful considerations of a firm’s diversion, equity, and inclusion statistics —both against a benchmark and peers —should be on top of every law firm’s to-do list. The challenge of retaining women and attorneys from diverse backgrounds needs to be addressed to pause the persistent loss of talent and experience from the legal profession. Business intelligence, analysis, and insights from Leopard Solutions can help law firms, big and small, devise a clear strategy to attract women lawyers, diversify their practices, and increase retention rates.