Washington. D.C. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Hispanic attorneys have made little progress breaking into the upper echelons of the Washington, D.C., legal market in the last decade, accounting for just 2% of federal and Big Law partners in the D.C. area, according to a recently published report.

The current figure is an increase of just one percentage point over the number provided 10 years ago, in 2009.

The report, published by the Hispanic Bar Association of the District of Columbia, looked at 10 years of data on more than 10,000 attorneys. The data was pulled from a variety of sources, including the National Association for Law Placement, the American Bar Association and federal government records.

"I think the overarching facts are not anything new. The numbers are abysmal all around, but what frustrates me the most is the lack of change over time," said Leila Levi, HBA-DC president and senior counsel at the National Women's Law Center.

The lack of progress is especially damning given that the D.C. legal market has grown by 4,311 attorneys, or 36%, since 2012. Hispanics are also the least represented among D.C. associates, accounting for just 3.71% of associates. Black associates make up 5.67% of the D.C. associate population. Asian associates account for 10.52%.

In fact, the percentage of Hispanic partners in D.C. is lower than the national percentage by half a percentage point, according to the report. And Hispanic attorneys are the least represented minority group in the federal government, representing 3.3% of D.C. federal attorneys.

In an October interview with ALM publication The Daily Business Review, National Hispanic Bar Association President Irene Oria said that the Bar will place a greater emphasis on supporting Hispanic attorneys in government as they "are at the frontline, battling the legal issues that are so important to our community."

"We have to be more vigilant and make sure we support our attorneys going into those sectors," Oria said at the time.

The report puts forth several solutions for boosting representation, including adopting the "Mansfield Rule" and partnering with the HBA and other affinity groups. Government agencies and big law firms must also address elitism and the over-reliance on ivy-league credentials in hiring decisions, said Richard Rodriguez, immediate past HBA-DC president and assistant attorney general at the Office of the Attorney General for Washington, D.C.

Many Hispanic attorneys are first-generation lawyers and come from less prestigious law schools. But where an attorney got their degree, Rodriguez argues, is not an accurate predictor for future success.

" I had a 3.4 GPA coming out of law school and have often faced the ivy league kids," said Rodriguez, who graduated from American University's law school in Washington, D.C. "They're nothing special, and firms need to stop looking at them exclusively."

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