Every March, Women’s History Month offers a moment to look at how far women have come and how far there is still to go. In the practice of law, that history is long enough to warrant careful charting.
The earliest recorded example of a woman arguing a legal case dates to 42 B.C., when Hortensia addressed the Second Triumvirate in Rome on behalf of a group of wealthy women facing a war tax. She argued well enough that the tax was reduced, but this was followed by an edict explicitly prohibiting women from representing others in court.
For roughly the next 1,900 years, that was a familiar pattern: Individual women made headway in the legal field before being pushed back.
In many respects, a great deal of progress has been made in the last 35 years. In 1991, women made up just over 38% of law firm associates. By 2023, they exceeded 50%.
But representation at the associate level is not the whole picture; partnership rates, compensation, and well-being paint a more complex picture of where women are in the legal industry in 2026.
The legal industry pipeline
Women are entering the legal industry at record numbers. According to ABA data, women have outnumbered men in U.S. law school classrooms for ten consecutive years, making up 56.12% of all enrolled JD students in 2025.
The numbers remain strong following law school. At the associate level, women comprised 51.62% of law firm associates in 2024, a gain of 1.3 percentage points over the prior year. For the first time in the profession’s history, women occupy the majority at both professional entry points.
But the further up the ladder you look, the less that progress holds up.
Between associate and equity partner, the drop-off is steep
The numbers changed dramatically, however, between associate and equity partner. Across the profession, women hold 24.8% of equity partner seats. And even among the women who do make partner, fewer reach equity status than their male counterparts, with 48% of female partners holding equity, compared to 60% of male partners.
In firm leadership, the picture is similar. According to NAWL, women make up:
- 12% of managing partner roles
- 28% of governance committee seats
- 27% of practice group leader positions
After seven years of practice, men are two to five times more likely to make partner than women, according to the ABA. Women are twice as likely as men to leave law firms early, and they continue to leave even after making partner.
Why women leave law
The associate attrition rate for women was 22% in 2024, compared to 20% for men, according to the NALP Foundation. The reasons women cite vary, but there are several recurring factors:
- Compensation that doesn’t reflect contribution
- Disproportionate share of caretaking responsibilities at home
- The expectation to continually prove themselves beyond what their male counterparts face
- Limited access to the client development opportunities that drive advancement
None of these are personal failures. They are the predictable results of structures that were not built with women in mind, and compensation is where those structures tend to be most visible.
The compensation gap
Seventy percent of women partners believe they are paid less than male partners for equivalent contributions, and 94% of those women believe the difference is greater than 10%, according to Bloomberg Law. However, only 9% of male partners believe any gap exists.
That disconnect is easier to understand when you look at how compensation in law is actually calculated. In most firms, it is largely a function of origination credit, which means the compensation disparity and the origination disparity are, in most firms, the same disparity.
According to Bloomberg Law’s reporting on 2024 partner compensation data, male partners averaged $1.7 million in total compensation compared to $1.2 million for female partners. This reflects a 29% compensation gap. (Although it’s also notable that this gap has narrowed 34% since 2022, and both men and women saw compensation rise 37% over that period.)
One significant factor in this is likely origination credit. Male partners reported average originations of $3.9 million in 2024, compared to $2.4 million for female partners. Since origination is often one of the biggest drivers of partner compensation, the difference between men and women is worth examining.
Origination credit systems are subject to bias in how credit is assigned and inherited, as Bloomberg Law has reported. Some of the most common ways this occurs:
- Client relationships are passed down within firms, disproportionately from senior male partners to male colleagues.
- Women partners are more likely to have their contributions to client development attributed to someone else or go unrecorded.
- In some firms, a partner can still hold origination credit for a client relationship that another attorney now manages entirely.
- When origination credit is assigned informally, the attorneys best positioned to inherit credit tend to be those already in the majority.
For women with a substantial book of business, this has direct financial consequences. A compensation system built primarily around origination credit will produce different outcomes for women than for men, so long as the way credit is recorded and assigned remains inconsistent.
The non-billable work burden
Law firm compensation systems vary, but most weight billable hours, originations, and realization rates above everything else. Non-billable work (DEI committee service, mentoring, training, administrative firm citizenship) factors in less consistently, and in many firms, not at all.
That is important to keep in mind here, because origination credit doesn’t accumulate in a vacuum. It requires time, and for women in law, that time is being spent somewhere else.
As Bloomberg Law has reported, women in law firms disproportionately take on non-billable firm citizenship work. Women, especially women of color, are also more likely to take on office housekeeping tasks (think organizing firm events, coordinating pro bono efforts, onboarding new associates) and have less access to prime assignments, according to the ABA, citing research by Kim Elsesser.
Take, for example, the 2024 ABA Profile of the Legal Profession survey that found women hold only 12% of managing partner roles, 28% of governance committee seats, and 27% of practice group leader positions. These roles generate the profile and visibility often necessary for building client relationships and accumulating origination credit.
Law, women, and well-being
The legal industry is demanding, but as a group, women feel this demand acutely. Women in law report higher rates of stress, anxiety, depression, and hazardous drinking than their male colleagues, and higher rates of hazardous drinking than women in most other professions.
These aren’t personal failures. They are outcomes of professional conditions that make it harder to thrive. Attorneys who are burned out, underrecognized, and stretched across billable and non-billable demands cannot build the practices and lives they came to law to build. The numbers bear this out.
Mental health
According to research published in PLOS ONE by Anker and Krill, women attorneys report significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety, and stress than their male colleagues. One in four women attorneys reported considering leaving the profession due to mental health concerns, burnout, or stress, compared to 17% of men.
The burnout numbers reflect the same challenges.
According to Bloomberg Law’s 2023 Attorney Workload and Hours Survey, women reported feeling burned out 56% of the time, compared to 41% for men. Only 10% of women reported experiencing none of the eight work-related health problems listed in the survey, compared with 21% of men. The problems women reported at higher rates than men included disrupted sleep, anxiety, physical health concerns, and depression.
The ABA’s Profile of the Legal Profession found that women who experienced work-family conflict were four times more likely to consider leaving the profession due to mental health, burnout, or stress, even though men in the same survey were more likely to be married with children.
Substance use
The Anker and Krill research also found that women attorneys show higher rates of risky drinking than their male counterparts. This finding runs counter to most assumptions about gender and alcohol use in professional settings.
According to the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation and ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs, women in legal professions report problematic drinking at roughly double the rate of women in the general population (39.5% vs. 19%).
Despite that prevalence, only 2% of attorneys in the Anker and Krill study had ever received an alcohol use disorder diagnosis, an issue that the researchers linked to denial, stigma, and a professional culture that normalizes heavy drinking. Among people who screen positive for unhealthy alcohol use, women are more likely than men to go undiagnosed, according to research published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
What this data mean for you
Whether you are just starting in the legal field or you’re a seasoned professional with a significant book of business, these numbers impact you. They don’t determine any individual woman’s trajectory, but they do highlight that trends in compensation, advancement, and well-being in law are structural and systemic.
So how do you carve out a career that’s meaningful, profitable, and sustainable?
That starts with understanding your own value.
What is your book of business worth to a firm?
How portable is your client base?
How does your current compensation compare to what your originations would generate elsewhere?
Is the practice you’re building sustainable and aligned with the goals you have for both your professional and personal life?
These aren’t hypothetical questions. They are the foundation of any informed conversation about your career, whether you’re considering a move or evaluating where you are.
It also means taking stock of the broader picture. Compensation is one dimension, but so are how your firm handles business development access, leadership pathways, and the day-to-day conditions that the well-being data in this post describes.
If any of this resonates, we’d love to hear from you. Contact Gillman Strategic Group to start the conversation.
