At a time when associates are chasing fewer spots as partners, women lawyers continue to lag behind their male peers in becoming partners, according to the latest data from the Project for Attorney Retention.
The fact that large law firms promote fewer female associates than male associates to partnership isn’t news, nor is it surprising. But it appears that the spread is growing — new male partners outnumbered new female partners more than 2-to-1 this year, PAR reports. Even more discouraging is the fact that the number of promotions of women has fallen year over year. The promotion rate of women at the 123 large law firms surveyed fell 2 percentage points this year, from 34 percent to 32 percent.
