Afra Afsharipour, senior associate dean for academic affairs and professor of law at University of California, Davis School of Law. Courtesy photo

Afra Afsharipour, the senior associate dean for academic affairs at University of California, Davis School of Law, brushed up against the lack of diversity in M&A work in her seven years as a young lawyer at Davis Polk & Wardwell. "I was often the only person that was like me in the room," the first-generation immigrant says. 

But even if this structural imbalance in M&A is obvious, it hasn't been subjected to a rigorous empirical evaluation, unlike the gender gap in law firms or the question of women in the C-suite or on corporate boards.

Afsharipour is looking to change that with a new paper that uses a 700-transaction database to explore the paucity of women in lead roles in transactions, both in law firms and in the investment banking industry. In one damning snapshot, over a seven-year period, women made up just 10.5% of lead legal advisers on the buyer's side. Afsharipour talked about her research with The American Lawyer.