If we were able to step back in time and enter a courtroom in the 1960s it’s likely that there would be no minorities in the room, and the only woman would be the court reporter. In the 1960s, fewer than 5 percent of law school students were women. In the last 20 years, approximately half of all law school graduates have been women. In 2016, people of color received approximately one third of all law degrees. Today, 30 percent of federal and state trial court judges are women and 20 percent are minorities.

While things have certainly improved since the 1960s, it’s clear we still have a way to go. For example, a 2017 study found that female attorneys accounted for just 25 percent of all attorneys appearing in commercial and criminal cases. The more complex the civil litigation, the less likely a woman was to appear as lead counsel, with the percentage shrinking from 31 percent in one-party cases to less than 20 percent in cases involving five or more parties. In class action litigation, women appeared as lead counsel only 13 percent of the time.