NALP Bulletin, April 2018
Equity partners in multi-tier law firms continue to be disproportionately white men. New figures from NALP show that in 2017, only 18.7% of equity partners were women and only 6.1% were racial/ethnic minorities.
NALP's findings on women equity partners continue to mirror those of the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL), which in its most recent report (posted at http://www.nawl.org/page/2017) found that women comprised about 19% of the equity partnership in 2017.
NALP has been compiling its information since 2011, when NALP began asking law firms to report demographic information for equity and non-equity partners through the NALP Directory of Legal Employers. As has been the case since 2011, there is a definite skew among women and minority lawyers who are partners toward non-equity status. Partners in general continue to be disproportionately both male and white (almost 72% white and male in 2017), and in multi-tiered firms the skew toward men and non-minorities among equity partners appears to be somewhat greater than among partners as a whole.
Although many firms with multi-tier partnerships did not provide equity/non-equity partner demographics in 2017, many did, accounting for 21,350 partners, or about 65% of the partners in the NALP Directory with multi-tier partnerships. Tables 1-3 provide several perspectives on the findings for 2017 with comparative figures for prior years.
Based on those offices that provided information, 62.9% of male partners were equity partners as of February 2017, while somewhat less than half, about 47%, of women partners and 46% of minority partners, were equity partners, a differential of about 16 percentage points. See Table 1, Percent of Partners Reported as Equity Partners by Gender or Minority Status.
More dramatically perhaps, among equity partners, 81.3% were men, 18.7% were women, and 6.1% were racial/ethnic minorities. (The minority figures include both men and women, so the three figures add to more than 100%.) Among non-equity partners, the respective figures were 69.3% men, 30.7% women, and 10.4% racial/ethnic minorities. See Table 2, Distribution of Equity and Non-equity Partners by Gender or Minority Status.
Finally, among all partners, the equity/non-equity split stood at about 59%/41%. Slightly less than half of partners were male equity partners; just over 11% were women equity partners; and 3.6% were minority equity partners. (Again, minorities are also included in the counts by gender.) See Table 3, Distribution of All Partners by Equity Status and Gender or Minority Status.
During the time period that NALP has collected this kind of information, firms have become more familiar with reporting this information, making year-to-year comparison more meaningful. Nonetheless, small changes should not be given undue emphasis or necessarily construed as a trend. Nor, given how closely some firms hold the information about equity and non-equity demographics, is it possible to know the extent to which the equity/non-equity information reported — covering about 65% of partners in multi-tier firms — is representative of all partners in these firms. It is the case that coverage has increased from about 50% in 2011 but has ranged from just 61% to 67% since 2013, suggesting that this level is what is sustainable over time.
To the extent that broad trends in the data can be identified over the seven-year period, it does appear that the distribution of all partners by equity status has moved, but only in tiny increments, toward a greater representation by women and minorities, just as women and minorities have made small gains in representation among partners as a whole. For instance, between 2011 and 2017, the percent of all partners who were male equity partners fell from 51.7% to 48.1%, while the percent of all partners who were women equity partners rose from 9.5% to 11.1%, and the percent of all partners who were minority equity partners rose from 2.9% to 3.6%. See Table 3. Similarly, the percent of equity partners who were men in 2011 was 84.4% and fell to 81.3% by 2017. During the same period, the percent of equity partners who were women rose from 15.6% to 18.7%, and the percent of equity partners who were minority rose from 4.7% to 6.1%. See Table 2.
Over the seven years that NALP has been collecting this data, the percentage of all partners in two-tier partnerships who are equity partners has declined slightly (by about 2 percentage points), and overall percentages of partners who are women or minorities has crept up (Table 3). So, the finding that the percentages of partners who are women or minority equity partners have not lost ground may be a small positive sign.
To determine whether an individual law firm or law office is a multi-tier firm and to determine whether multi-tier demographic data was submitted for a specific firm, you can review the directory information the firm submitted at www.nalpdirectory.com.
Table 1. Percent of Partners Reported as Equity Partners by Gender or Minority Status
| 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | |
| Men partners | 16,134 | 18,278 | 18,083 | 17,641 | 17,476 | 17,456 | 16,309 |
| % equity | 64.9% | 64.2% | 63.6% | 63.5% | 61.8% | 62.5% | 62.9% |
| Women partners | 4,104 | 4,578 | 4,778 | 4,835 | 4,971 | 5,145 | 5,041 |
| % equity | 47.0% | 46.4% | 47.4% | 47.7% | 45.8% | 46.9% | 47.0% |
| Minority partners | 1,229 | 1,423 | 1,562 | 1,549 | 1,617 | 1,696 | 1,670 |
| % equity | 47.1% | 46.8% | 47.2% | 48.5% | 45.5% | 45.9% | 45.9% |
Table 2. Distribution of Equity and Non-equity Partners by Gender or Minority Status
| 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | |
| Equity partners | 12,396 | 13,864 | 13,760 | 13,508 | 13,078 | 13,323 | 12,630 |
| % men | 84.4% | 84.7% | 83.5% | 82.9% | 82.6% | 81.9% | 81.3% |
| % women | 15.6% | 15.3% | 16.5% | 17.1% | 17.4% | 18.1% | 18.7% |
| % minority | 4.7% | 4.8% | 5.4% | 5.6% | 5.6% | 5.8% | 6.1% |
| Non-equity partners | 7,842 | 8,992 | 9,101 | 8,968 | 9,369 | 9,278 | 8,720 |
| % men | 72.3% | 72.7% | 72.4% | 71.8% | 71.2% | 70.6% | 69.3% |
| % women | 27.7% | 27.3% | 27.6% | 28.2% | 28.8% | 29.4% | 30.7% |
| % minority | 8.3% | 8.4% | 9.1% | 8.9% | 9.4% | 9.9% | 10.4% |
Table 3. Distribution of All Partners by Equity Status and Gender or Minority Status
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2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 |
| Total partners | 20,238 | 22,856 | 22,861 | 22,476 | 22,447 | 22,601 | 21,350 |
| % equity | 61.3% | 60.7% | 60.2% | 60.1% | 58.3% | 58.9% | 59.2% |
| % men equity | 51.7% | 51.4% | 50.3% | 49.8% | 48.1% | 48.3% | 48.1% |
| % women equity | 9.5% | 9.3% | 9.9% | 10.3% | 10.1% | 10.7% | 11.1% |
| % minority equity | 2.9% | 2.9% | 3.2% | 3.3% | 3.3% | 3.4% | 3.6% |
| % non-equity | 38.7% | 39.3% | 39.8% | 39.9% | 41.7% | 41.1% | 40.8% |
| % men non-equity | 28.0% | 28.6% | 28.8% | 28.7% | 29.7% | 29.0% | 28.3% |
| % women non-equity | 10.7% | 10.7% | 11.0% | 11.2% | 12.0% | 12.1% | 12.5% |
| % minority non-equity | 3.2% | 3.3% | 3.6% | 3.5% | 3.9% | 4.1% | 4.2% |
Note: Figures for 2017 are based on 249 offices/firms that have a tiered partnership and also reported information on equity and non-equity partner counts. A number of firms that otherwise reported information on an office-by-office basis reported their partnership information on a firm-wide basis. Minorities are also counted as men or women; hence percentages add to more than the total. In some cases, firms did not update their figures from 2016.
