First, the numbers: 1.07 percent, 0.64 percent, 0.63 percent. These statistics represent Asian-American, African-American, and Hispanic/Latina women partners in the legal profession, respectively, according to the National Association of Law Placement (NALP). The path to partnership can be a steep pyramid for anyone, but here are the facts: 85 percent of all women of color leave law firms before their seventh year, which means a disproportionate number of women of color don’t stay long enough to be considered for partnership. And the number of partners is trending downward.
Women of color leave law firms for many reasons, including a foreboding sense among these women that partnership is an unattainable goal. Liane Jackson sounded the alarm in an ABA Journal article titled, “Minority Women Are Disappearing From Big Law—and Here’s Why.” A salient theme in Jackson’s article is a sense of frustration and, to a limited extent, resignation about the state of diversity and inclusion for women despite the decades of work on diversity.
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