THE CHANGING PATTERNS OF CAREER MOBILITY IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION: A LOG-LINEAR ANALYSIS OF CHICAGO LAWYERS(1975 AND 1995)*

Pages3-24
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/S1521-6136(2001)0000003004
Published date08 November 2001
Date08 November 2001
AuthorHarris H. Kim
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THE CHANGING PATTERNS OF
CAREER MOBILITY IN THE LEGAL
PROFESSION: A LOG-LINEAR
ANALYSIS OF CHICAGO LAWYERS
(1975 AND 1995)*
Harris H. Kim
Scholars of the legal profession have repeatedly emphasized the explosive
growth in both demand for and supply of legal services1over the past several
decades (e.g. Abel, 1986, 1989; Epstein, 1993; Galanter & Palay, 1991; Heinz,
Laumann, Nelson & Michelson, 1998; Kelly, 1994; Nelson, 1988, 1994).
According to the dominant view in the extant scholarship, what largely accounts
for the structural transformation of the American bar – in particular, its sheer
size and demographic profile – is the increasing presence of practitioners from
relatively lower status academic background. These include, among others,
ethnic minorities and women, who had traditionally been excluded from
occupying legal jobs (Abel, 1986; Epstein, 1993; Nelson, 1994). Throughout
its various types of practice, the prevailing argument in the literature suggests,
it has been necessary for the profession as a whole to expand its pool of
potential employees in order to meet the ever-increasing demand for (especially
corporate) legal work.
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Legal Professions: Work, Structure and Organization, pages 3–24.
Copyright © 2001 by Elsevier Science Ltd.
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
ISBN: 0-7623-0800-1
* This paper was originally prepared for the Law and Society Association Annual Meeting (in
Miami, FL., May 26–29, 2000). I thank John P. Heinz and Edward O. Laumann for their helpful
comments on an earlier version of this paper.
One testable hypothesis, then, is that career mobility has increased for certain
segments of the bar (e.g. lower-tier school graduates) over the years. Is the
probability of working in a relatively higher-prestige setting (e.g. “large” private
firm) greater for them now than it was in the past? The purpose of this paper
is to test this by using two representative surveys of the Chicago bar conducted
in 1975 and 1995.2Using log-linear analysis, I examine the extent to which
the causal association between the prestige of law school and the distinct
practice settings has changed in the two intervening decades. I also compare
the differential outcome between male and female lawyers based on the 1995
sample. The 1975 sample is excluded from this second analysis due to the small
number of women lawyers at the time of the survey. The answer to the above
query, as I will demonstrate, is a qualified “yes” at best. The findings show
that upward mobility occurred only across specific practice contexts. Within the
private sphere, mainly patterns of downward mobility are observed. Sex differ-
ences are also found, indicating the causal role of gender on career trajectory
or chances of mobility.
According to Abel (1989), “American lawyers constitute the largest legal
profession in the world, both in absolute numbers and in proportion to
population” (p. 3). And the enlargement of the legal field has clearly intensified
since Abel’s earlier observation. Aside from some of the underlying
macro-economic and other exogenous structural reasons (Nelson, 1994, pp.
347–367), this trend may be due in part to what Galanter and Palay (1991)
describe as the “exponential growth” of large-size law firms driven by the orga-
nizational logic of the “promotion-to-partner tournament.”3Several scholars have
taken issue with their parsimonious, yet controversial, economic thesis of firm
expansion (e.g. Heinz, 1992; Kordana, 1995; Nelson, 1992; Sander & Williams,
1992).4But all of their criticisms acknowledge the unequivocal fact that the
American bar has experienced a truly unprecedented upsurge in professional size
and scale especially since the “golden age” of circa 1960 (Galanter & Palay,
1991). In his historical comparative analysis, Abbott (1988) also in part traces
the contemporary pre-eminence of the American legal system to critical
decisions around the turn of the 19th century to replace the then widespread
apprenticeship with law schools, which provided the capacity to train large
numbers of lawyers to serve the growing legal demands. The British system, on
the other hand, floundered and became mired in inter-professional (jurisdictional)
conflicts basically because of its “failure to adjust output and demand” (p. 251).
Most contemporary scholars echo the common view that for whatever reasons
– whether they be historical in nature (e.g. Abbott, 1988), primarily demand-
driven (e.g. Nelson’s (1988, 1994) external economic/demographic emphasis;
Kordana’s “production-imperative model” (1995)), or endogenously initiated
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4 HARRIS H. KIM

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