For decades, the U.S. legal profession has focused on diversity, in part, by shedding light on the acute lack of diversity in the profession. The profession as a whole has been self-critical, publicly admitting to the lack of diversity and emphasizing the importance of making the profession more inclusive. Despite the diversity dialogue, diverse attorneys continue to be grossly underrepresented.
In its 2015 Lawyer Demographics survey, the American Bar Association (ABA) reported that there are 1.3 million licensed attorneys in the United States but only a miniscule fraction of them were racial or ethnic minorities. The survey’s most recent data (from 2010) regarding the racial/ethnic makeup of lawyers as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau revealed that white attorneys comprise 88 percent of the profession. Black and Hispanic lawyers make up 5 percent and 4 percent, respectively. Asian-Pacific American attorneys comprise 3 percent, but there was no reported percentage for American Indian and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander lawyers.
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