"Walking Out the Door," just released, the first of several reports resulting from the American Bar Association's 2017 initiative on why women leave the law, is a lot to digest.

Women enter law school and the profession at about equal rates with men—maybe more so. Yet women's ranks in senior private law positions thin out substantially, in fact, by as much as half, even in the 21st century. The report gives reams of statistical information on a range of topics, but several things jump off the page.

First, at every metric studied, women have lower rates of satisfaction than do men. Sometimes, the differences are small, sometimes they are large, but they are consistent. Maybe an explanation for that glaring disparity will come in a later report.

Second, the report's analyses are limited to women in large Am Law 200 firms. That may be a function of selecting a convenient data set, but we think not. Rather, it seems to reflect a bias that "success" in the law (the word used in the report) means being an equity partner at a 1,000-person firm. When you skew the data sample, the analyses must ask what effect does that choice have on the results? Is it that men generally want to work in those larger organizations and the male ego drives them to stay, rather than leave for a smaller environment where they may be just as "successful?" The report says that the number and ratio of equity partners has materially decreased in the large firms generally, possibly as a function of greater lateral hiring. But it does not say how that affects whether women want to stay in such an environment.

Third, the report indicates that "status quo" factors affect the slow rate of change. One example is that the same people serve on the compensation or hiring committees year after year. It does not take much imagination to figure out a way to change that dynamic—open up the process.

Fourth, and this is truly embarrassing, managing partners in large firms participated in the study proportionately less than did other partners. Is that emblematic of the problem? Leadership's happy talk is not enough. As Eldridge Cleaver said, "if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem."

We hope that every lawyer takes the time to read these reports and later editorials regarding specific statistical findings and recommendations.