Looking at diversity statistics is always a good test of whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist, and the 2013 Diversity Scorecard is no exception. In our latest survey of the largest law firms in the country, we found that last year minority lawyers made up 13.9 percent of all lawyers at the 228 firms that responded to our survey. While that’s up slightly from the previous year, it’s exactly the same percentage as in 2008, before the recession took hold and the overall minority percentage began to dip. If you’re an optimist, you’ll say that our newest survey shows that minorities have recovered the ground they lost in the economic downturn. If you’re a pessimist, you’ll point out that there’s been no real increase in diversity in five years. You might also note that the percentage of African American attorneys remains markedly lower than it was in 2008.
To understand the significance of what’s happened in our survey over the past five years, it’s useful to go back to the beginning of the Diversity Scorecard. In 2000 we found that minorities constituted 9.7 percent of all attorneys at the biggest firms. That figure rose most yearsalbeit sometimes very slightlyuntil reaching a high of 13.9 percent in 2008. Then the recession hit. Firms started letting go of attorneys, and minority lawyers were disproportionately affected by those layoffs. Though the percentage of minority lawyers has risen since then, it only means that firms have regained the ground they lost. "When we’re talking about going back to 2008 levels, we shouldn’t be doing it in a celebratory mode," says Laurel Bellows, the current president of the American Bar Association and a principal at The Bellows Law Group P.C. in Chicago. She adds, "We have clearly not found the key to diversifying our profession."
