Profile of the Legal Profession

The ABA released its 2021 ABA Profile of the Legal Profession report, 140 pages of statistics and trends covering demographics, judges, COVID-19, legal tech, law schools, etc. A few tidbits from the ABA Journal are:

• There were slightly more than 1.3 million active lawyers in the United States as of Jan. 1, 2021. This represented a decline of one-tenth of 1% compared with last year’s number; however, the report noted this was due to a decision by Vermont to count only residential lawyers in its official headcount.
• More than one-fourth of U.S. lawyers are in two states: New York (185,076) and California (167,709).
• One of every seven lawyers is a person of color. Slightly more than one-third of all lawyers (37%) are women. Both rates are about the same as last year.
• There are more than 114,000 law school students in the U.S. — the highest number since 2014. A majority (54%) of those students are women. There are also 25 law schools where women comprise 60% or more of the student body, but there are no law schools where men comprise 60% percent or more of the student population.
• For the 10th consecutive year, the number of men attending law school declined. But for the fourth consecutive year, the number of women attending law school rose.