Page 48 - FDCC Insights Spring 2022

their mid-fifties were starting law school, less than 40% of all law students were female. Since women and minorities now make up 49% and 27%, respectively, of today’s law school classes, can we extrapolate that thirty years from now, when many of these women and minorities are in their mid-fifties, the numbers of DWEPs will correlate accordingly? We can hope.
For now, there are signs of slow progress. According to a recent survey report by the National Association of Woman Lawyers, the percentage of women on compensation or management committees or serving as managing partners or practice group leaders has doubled to almost 25% in the last ten years. Moreover, according to the 2020 Annual Survey Report from the National Association of Women Lawyers, women make up 21% of all law firm equity partners. See 2020 Annual Survey Report, National Association of Women Lawyers Survey on Promotion and Retention of Women in Law Firms, available at https://issuu. com/nawl1899/docs/2020_nawl_survey_report.
The percentages of women in law schools continues to rise as the number of male students has declined every year between 2010 and 2020. In 2010, there were 78,516 male law students. In 2020, there were 52,766. Women, on the other hand, have seen a consistent increase every year since 2015, going from 55,766 students in 2015 to 61,949 in 2020. Women are now a solid majority on law school campuses, and the gap is widening. In 2020, there were almost 10,000 more women in law schools than men. In August 2021, a wave of top law schools brought in their most diverse first-year classes ever, with a nearly 13% increase in the national applicant pool, with Harvard and Yale law schools reporting that students of color made up more than half of their 1L enrollment.3
Virtually everyone interviewed for this article confirmed that the environment is changing, attitudes are changing, and progress is being made. But, as much as many law firms (especially the larger ones) tout their diversity numbers, until the DWEP percentages improve, are the firms truly a place where lawyers of all walks of life are welcome? The answer is different at every firm, but at virtually every firm the DWEP numbers lag so far behind the numbers of diverse and female candidates in other positions that it cannot simply be a matter of coincidence. Statistics in this instance do not lie.
3 https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/deep-applicant-pool-yields-record-breaking-diversity-top-law- schools-2021-08-26/
John S. Worden is an FDCC Defense Counsel Member and an equity partner in the Commercial Litigation Group at Venable LLP in San Francisco, California. Contact him at: JSWorden@Venable.com. Sarah E. Diamond is an associate in the Commercial Litigation Group at Venable LLP in Los Angeles, California and assisted in the research and writing of this article.
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Insights SPRING2021