"How do hierarchies of race, class, gender, and law school status condition the career trajectories of lawyers? And how do individual lawyers strategically navigate the constraints and opportunities of their environments? Where do they find professional satisfaction? This book offers an unprecedented account of opportunity structures and social stratification within the early 21st century American legal profession, combining unique longitudinal survey data with interviews, storytelling, and insights fromsocial theory. Starting in 2000, the authors collected over 10,000 survey responses from more than 5,000 lawyers, following these lawyers through the first twenty years of their careers. They also conducted in-depth interviews with more than 200 lawyers.They contextualize their findings through attention to the features of a market-driven legal profession, in particular the growth in recent decades of the private sector relative to the public sector and corresponding disparities in earnings and status between these different segments. The analysis in this book reveals a legal profession that is highly stratified. Although individual lawyers exercise agency and often find satisfaction in their work, there are deep divisions within the profession by client type and practice setting, and women and attorneys of color face discrimination and persistent barriers to advancement. The careers of lawyers both reflect and reproduce inequalities in law and society writ large"--
An unprecedented account of social stratification within the US legal profession.
How do race, class, gender, and law school status condition the career trajectories of lawyers? And how do professionals then navigate these parameters?
The Making of Lawyers Careers provides an unprecedented account of the last two decades of the legal profession in the US, offering a data-backed look at the structure of the profession and the inequalities that early-career lawyers face across race, gender, and class distinctions. Starting in 2000, the authors collected over 10,000 survey responses from more than 5,000 lawyers, following these lawyers through the first twenty years of their careers. They also interviewed more than two hundred lawyers and drew insights from their individual stories, contextualizing data with theory and close attention to the features of a market-driven legal profession.
Their findings show that lawyers careers both reflect and reproduce inequalities within society writ large. They also reveal how individuals exercise agency despite these constraints.
Recenzijos
"[ The Making of Lawyers' Careers] disputes law firms' explanation for why women and minorities disproportionately leave law firms before partnership consideration. . . . [ their] data provides important insight into why current efforts to improve diversity in the legal profession are plateauing." * Trial Magazine * "The Making of Lawyers Careers is essential reading for lawyers, law students, and anyone interested in the practice of law, lawyers careers, and the impact of law and lawyers on American culture and politics. Every chapter is a gem . . . In recent years, some law schools have supplemented the required legal ethics or law governing lawyers class with various offerings about the legal profession, law practice, and lawyers careers. The Making of Lawyers Careers should be a required reading in these types of classes. Indeed, it ought to become a cornerstone of every lawyers library." * Jotwell * "The book remains a signal scholarly achievement and a must-read for social scientists interested in understanding the social structure of the US legal profession." * American Journal of Sociology * "This in-depth examination of diverse attorneys career journeys presents a remarkably nuanced analysis of data, individual narratives, and the patterns that emerge between them. The result is a textured map that allows leaders to holistically identifyand addressthe mile markers and roadblocks that propel or impede a diverse lawyers career." -- Robert Grey | president, Leadership Council on Legal Diversity This massive study of lawyers careersthe most ambitious and comprehensive ever undertakenis marvelously revealing, not only of the structure of the profession but of the felt experience of being a lawyer in 21st century America. -- Robert W. Gordon | Stanford University
Note on Authorship
Part 1 Introduction
1 Introduction: The Making of Lawyers Careers
2 From the Golden Age to the Age of Disruption: Setting the Context
for Lawyers Careers in the New Millennium
Part 2 The Structure of Lawyers Careers
3 Change and Continuity in the Legal Field: From Walled-Off
Hemispheres to More or Less Mixed Hierarchical Sequences
4 Race, Class, and Gender in the Structuring of Lawyers Early
Careers
5 Two Hemispheres Revisited: Fields of Law, Practice Settings, and
Client Types
Part 3 The Narratives of Lawyers Careers
6 Moving Up and Moving On: Careers in Law Firms
7 Rethinking the Solo Practitioner
8 Moving Inside: Practicing Law in Business Organizations
9 Commitment, Careerism, and Stratification: Careers in Government,
Nonprofits, and Public Interest Organizations
Part 4 Inequalities of Race and Gender
10 White Spaces: The Enduring Racialization of American Law Firms,
with Vitor M. Dias
11 Student Debt and Cumulative (Dis)Advantage in Lawyers Careers
12 Hegemonic Masculinity, Parenthood, and Gender Inequality, with
Andreea Mogosanu
Part 5 Public Roles and Private Lives
13 Dualities of Politics, Public Service, and Pro Bono in Lawyers
Careers, with Ioana Sendroiu
14 Lawyers Satisfaction and the Making of Lawyers Careers, with
Ioana Sendroiu
Part 6 Conclusion
15 Conclusion: Structure and Agency in the Making of Lawyers
Careers
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index
Robert L. Nelson is the MacCrate Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation and professor of sociology and law at Northwestern University. Ronit Dinovitzer is professor of sociology at the University of Toronto. Bryant G. Garth is Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of California, Irvine. Joyce S. Sterling is professor of law emeritus at the University of Denver College of Law. David B. Wilkins is the Lester Kissel Professor, Vice Dean for Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession, and Faculty Director of the Center on the Legal Profession, Harvard Law School. Meghan Dawe is a resident research fellow at the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School. Ethan Michelson is professor of sociology and law at Indiana University.
