NALP Bulletin+
March 2023

The ranks of law school graduates have become increasingly diverse in recent decades. If we look back to the Class of 1991, about 88% of graduates in the Class of 1991 were white, according to the American Bar Association (ABA). Years later that number has decreased to just over 65% of graduates in the Class of 2021, representing a corresponding increase in the number of diverse graduating students in this time frame.

The ABA’s data can be overlaid with data from NALP’s Employment Report and Salary Survey (ERSS) data on individual law school graduate demographics and employment outcomes over that same period to allow us to look at race/ethnicity and gender together, adding some nuance to the overall figures. Mining the data in that way reveals that 1993 was the last law school graduating class for which white men made up half or more of the students. The percentage of the graduating class accounted for by white males has declined to about one-third since then, and in the past two years for which ERSS data are available — 2020 and 2021 —the percentages of graduates who were white men were essentially neck and neck with the percentages for white women. Specifically, in 2020, 33.9% of the graduating class were white men and 33% were women. The figure for white men was the same in 2021 and was 34.3% for white women.

Meanwhile, representation of people of color over this same time frame has grown. The percentage of women of color has more than tripled from 5.8% in 1991 to 19.0% in 2021. The figure for men of color has lagged that of women of color, starting in the same place and more than doubling, from 5.7% in 1991 to 12.4% in 2021. The increase for these two groups, in concert with the decrease for white men, means that the presence of white women has not changed all that much, ranging from about 32% to 37% of graduates over the years.

The changing demographics of law school graduates over the past 30 years raises some interesting questions about what other changes have occurred over this time frame and whether the changes are related. This column looks at the demographics of law school graduates taking six specific job types — as prosecutors, as public defenders, in the military/Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG Corps), in civil legal services, and in business as a whole — a different perspective than the more usual analysis of the type of jobs taken by specific demographic groups. From this data, the question is then to what extent have the demographics of specific jobs changed and how much do the changes reflect, or not reflect, the overall class makeup over the years? The findings for that question are presented in Table 1. Additionally, by examining figures for specific racial and ethnic groups for some of these jobs, we can determine the extent to which experiences for specific racial and ethnic groups differ from experiences of graduates of color overall. These findings are in Table 2.

Starting with comparisons of white graduates and graduates of color, by gender:

• The last time more than half of jobs overall were taken by white men was in 1994. Since then, the percentage of jobs taken by white men has decreased to less than half in all of the six types being examined here except the military/JAG Corps. Looking more generally at broad employment categories, e.g., law firms, public interest, business, during the latter half of the 1990s, white men still continued to obtain at least half of law firm jobs overall, and close to half or more of jobs in business but were obtaining less than half of the jobs in other sectors. Percentages for law firms and business overall continued to decrease over time and by 2000 fewer than half of the jobs in every major employment sector were obtained by white men.
  
  
• The exception among the six specific job types is the military/JAG Corps, where, despite the share of military/ JAG Corps jobs obtained by white men dropping by 23 percentage points since 1991, white men still obtained at least half of the jobs. Jobs with the JAG Corps which were tracked specifically starting in 2011 show the same pattern and account for most of the jobs taken in the military. Although the share of these jobs obtained by graduates of color is up — almost tripling for women of color from 3.3% to 9.1% and jumping from 6.4% to 11.5% for men of color — both groups still lag far behind their representation among either employed graduates or graduates overall. Moreover, for reasons that cannot be determined from the data collected, the share of jobs in the military and JAG Corps specifically taken by men of color took a notable dip of more than three percentage points from 2016 to 2021.
  
  
• White men have not — at least in the past 30 years — taken the majority of jobs as prosecutors, public defenders, or in civil legal services. White women have outnumbered white men in public defender jobs since at least 2001; while white women have outnumbered white men in civil legal services by a considerable margin across the entire period. Among prosecutors, white women have outnumbered white men in most of the years since 2016; however, this is more due to a general decline in the share of jobs obtained by white men, as the share of jobs obtained by white women since 1991 has declined a bit.
  
  
• Representation of women of color among prosecutors has more than doubled, from 8.1% in 1991 to just over 17% in 2021 and it exceeded their representation among graduates as a whole and employed graduates in 1991, 1996, and 2001. Since then, however, their share, though increasing, has not been enough to match their increase in the share of graduates overall. The share of prosecutor jobs taken by men of color has doubled since 1991, as has their share of jobs and graduates overall, but the growth has not been consistent.
  
  
• Representation of women of color among public defenders has generally exceeded their representation among graduates as a whole and employed graduates, nearly doubling since 1991, from 10% to 18.7% in 2021. Notably, however, the same can’t be said for men of color. Only in 1991 and 2001 did their representation in these jobs exceed their representation among graduates overall. The share of these jobs obtained by men of color is now lower than in 1991, with some fluctuation in between.
  
  
• The story is similar for jobs in civil legal services, where representation of women of color has more than doubled from 1991 to 2021. In 2021, women of color took a full one-third of these jobs, and their share of these jobs has considerably exceeded their share of the class as a whole over this time period. In a mirror image, the share of jobs taken by white men in 1991 was about one-third and declined over the years to 18.6% in 2021, compared to the 15% figure for women of color in 1991. Men overall have remained underrepresented in these positions. The share of jobs obtained by men of color has increased by just 2 percentage points overall since 1991, and in 2021 was more than 3 percentage points below its 2011 level.
  
  
• People of color have been increasingly represented in business jobs, with men tending to be over-represented; the picture is more mixed for women depending on whether the comparison is with all graduates or employed graduates. In 2021, women of color represented almost 1 in 5 graduates, employed graduates, and graduates taking business jobs. White women have generally been less likely to take a job in business compared to their presence in the class overall, whereas the opposite is true of white men.
  
  

Digging a little deeper into the demographics of graduates of color taking certain types of jobs — as prosecutors or public defenders, in civil legal services, and in the military — reveals a variety of trajectories over the 1991- 2021 period (see Table 2).

• Latinx graduates have seen the largest share increase among graduates of color taking jobs as prosecutors, from just over 2% of jobs for both men and women in 1991, to 5.75% and 7.72% of jobs, respectively, in 2021. In contrast, shares for both male and female Black graduates have bobbled but have netted essentially flat over the period. The percentage for Asian graduates has gone up some.
  
  
• Among public defenders, Latinx women are notable for increasing their share almost four-fold, whereas the share of those jobs taken by Black graduates, especially men, has dropped, as has the share of Asian men.
  
  
• In the civil legal services realm, there is a similar pattern for Black and Latinx graduates. Figures for Asian women have varied between 4% and 8% following the 1.4% figure in 1991.
  
  
• Neither Asians nor Black women have sustained increases in the military (primarily, but not entirely, JAG Corps positions). The percentage of jobs taken by Black men has gone up only slightly, and not consistently.
  
  
• Overall, the presence of graduates of color among employed graduates has about tripled over the period, from 10.5% to almost 31%. However, the makeup of that group of graduates has shifted over the years. The proportions of employed graduates of color who are Black, Asian, or Latinx men have all decreased; most dramatically, the share of employed graduates of color in 2021 who were Black men is less than half what it was in 1991 (8.5% vs 18.7%). However, the share who are Black women has also decreased from almost 23% to 15%. Asian and Latinx women have had the largest share increase of the increasingly large portion of the pie. Thus, though the actual number of graduates in each of these groups has increased, as has their share of jobs overall, the shift in the distribution of specific racial or ethnic groups has limited that job share growth for some groups more than others (see the "All Jobs Taken" section of Table 2, and view Figure 2).
  
  

In conclusion, drawing many broad generalizations is difficult. We can see that over time, white men have been less likely to take civil legal services and public defender jobs than the class as whole, while white men have maintained a proportionate share of prosecutor jobs. Women of color have generally made gains, which men of color, particularly Black men, have not necessarily matched. The gains, however, have tended to be concentrated among Asian and Latinx women, and not Black women.

A future column will look at clerkship jobs, at the federal state and local levels, and law firm jobs at small (1-10 lawyers) firms and large (251+ lawyers) firms.

For an earlier version of this column covering years from 1994 – 2014, see "Jobs for New Law Graduates — A 20-Year Retrospective," NALP Bulletin, July 2016.

Table 1. Demographic Profile of Graduates Taking Selected Job Types-1991-2021
(percent of jobs taken by each demographic group)

*Jobs for which both gender and race/ethnicity of the graduate were reported. Percentages may not add to 100 for 2016 and 2021 as job counts can include graduates who do not identify as either male or female.
**These jobs were not tracked specifically in 2006 and years prior.
*** Graduates for whom both gender and race/ethnicity reported. Percentages may not add to 100.0 for 2016 and 2021 as graduate counts include graduates who did not identify as either male or female.
Note: 2021 figures for men include transgender men; 2021 figures for women include transgender women.

Table 2. Demographic Profile of Graduates of Color Taking Selected Job Types, 1991-2021
(percent of jobs taken by each demographic group)

Note: Jobs for which both gender and race/ethnicity were reported. Figures for Asian/Pacific Islander include graduates reported as East Indian/Pakistani or Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander for years in which those categories were in use. Figures for Latinx/Hispanic include graduates who were reported as Mexican, Puerto Rican, or Latino for years in which those categories were in use. 2021 figures for men include trans men. 2021 figures for women include trans women.

Figure 1. Graduate Demographics 1991-2021

Figure 2. Demographics: Graduates of Color

Note: "Other" includes Native American and multi-racial graduates; in 2021 "other" also includes graduates not identifying as either male or female.