As "BigLaw" issues continue to inform (if not dominate) law student culture, how partnership prospects distribute across genders receives persistent attention from many law students. Distributional concerns are increasingly acute as firms continue to hire an increasing number (and percentage) of female law school graduates (see, e.g., Fig. 2, below). Regrettably, much of what passes as information in this space is largely anecdotal or impressionistic.
Figure 2: WLRK new associate hires over time.
This figure (below) displays the number of associates hired by WLRK and promoted to partner at WLRK over time and by gender. Men are represented by the blue bars, and women by the red bars.
While a "gender gap" in attorney promotions to partnership has been documented consistently over time, contestation over causation for this gap persists. As it relates to the causation question, the two leading theories include discrimination and choice. More specifically, and as the authors note, "either women are disadvantaged because the decision-makers making promotion decisions are biased against them, or women are choosing to opt out of the competition for promotion because of childcare obligations, or other reasons." Partitioning these two possibilities endures as an exceedingly difficult methodological challenge.
In one recent effort to do just that, Making Partner at Wacthtell: A Gender Analysis, the authors, Colla (Bocconi Univ.--Finance) et al., lever data from one BigLaw firm (Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz), from 2003-2016. The paper's core finding supports the "choice" hypothesis as it finds that "promotions are driven by performance, not gender. Once key factors are controlled for, we find no evidence of inherent gender bias in partnership promotions."
To be sure, and despite their core finding, the authors go on to expressly note that they are not concluding that "Wachtell is a great place for young women lawyers." Rather, the paper's more narrow claim is that "the primary determinant of promotion at Wachtell is individual performance, with gender, business cycle conditions, age, and specific expertise not playing significant roles." The paper's abstract follows.
"This article examines the role that gender plays in promotion-to-partner decisions for one of the most storied of American law firms, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Wachtell’s unusual hiring, compensation and billing practices allow us to isolate the role that gender bias plays in promotion decisions in a way that is typically hard to do. Once key endogenous features are aligned, we find no evidence of gender bias in the probability of making partner. The primary determinant of promotion at Wachtell is individual performance, with gender, business cycle conditions, age, and specific expertise not playing significant roles."