Gender Pay Disparity Still Looms Large in Law Firms

• Pages: 26-27
• Date: 01 July 2022
• Author: Daniel S. Wittenberg
• Subject Matter: Civil Law

ay disparity between male and female lawyers con-

tinues to roil the profession. Despite women hav-

ing made up almost half of all associate classes

continually since 2005, they continue to earn far less

than male attorneys. Although more than 50 years have

passed since the Equal Pay Act became law, American women

still face a substantial gender wage gap.

By the Numbers—National Data

While women have made signicant strides in the legal pro-

fession, female attorneys continue to earn far less than male

attorneys. The same is true when looking across the board

at full-time employees in the United States. The domestic

gender-based wage gap has narrowed in recent years, but dis-

parities remain. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019

American Community Survey (ACS), on average, women

earned about 80 cents for every dollar men made. In 2020,

women in the United States earned 83 cents for every dol-

lar earned by men per the report Income and Poverty in the

United States: 2020. That’s a difference of 17 percent.

Per the Census Bureau, there are a multitude of factors

that may contribute to earnings differences between women

and men: age, number of hours worked, presence of children,

and education. The types of jobs women and men hold, and

the earnings difference among these occupations, also con-

tribute to gaps.

Based on weekly earnings data from the Bureau of

Labor Statistics, the gap has narrowed over time. In the

rst quarter of 1979, median weekly earnings for women

was 61.5 percent of men’s weekly earnings. There has been

some progress over the years, and in the fourth quarter of

2021, women’s weekly earnings were 84.3 percent of men’s

weekly earnings.

According to the ACS, a woman who is at least 16 years

old, is working a full-time, year-round job, and is part of the

civilian employed population, makes 81 percent as much as

her male counterpart earns. The pay gap varies, however, by

state. In Wyoming, for instance, the gender pay gap is 36.6

percent—the biggest wage gap in the nation based on those

who work full-time. That is, the median earning for women

is 63.4 percent of what men earn in that state. Based on this

set of data from the ACS, the gender pay gap is larger than

Gender Pay Disparity Still Looms

Large in Law Firms

By Daniel S. Witte nberg, Litigation News Ass ociate Editor

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Published in Litigation News Volume 47, Number 4, Summer 2022. © 2022 b y the American Bar Ass ociation. Reproduc ed with permission. A ll rights reserv ed. This information or an y portion there of may not be copied or dis seminated in any

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