Data shows more diversity among Texas’ young lawyers
According to numbers from the State Bar of Texas taken from 2008 through 2009, Texas Young Lawyers Association members – with average ages ranging from 26 to 40 years old – are 54 percent male and 46 percent female, a more balanced demographic compared to State Bar of Texas members who are 68 percent male and 32 percent female. Average ages for the State Bar of Texas members range from 36 to 66 years old.
“In many law schools for a number of years now those entering classes have been slightly higher in women than men,” said Frederic White, dean of Texas Wesleyan University’s School of Law. “Women are more than 50 percent of the population in many law schools.”
Jennifer Willingham, president of the Tarrant County Young Lawyers Association and a junior associate with the Fort Worth law firm Brown, Dean, Weisman, Proctor, Hart and Howell LLP, said young women are more often going into law because opportunities are available today that have not been available in the past.
“Since I’ve been practicing, and I’ve been practicing for about six years, females have been encouraged to get into the field because predecessors have opened the field for advancement,” Willingham said. “Instead of being stuck at the associate level, a lot of firms are doing what they can to recruit women because they know the benefit of having them.”
Race demographics also are becoming more diverse for the Texas Young Lawyers Association than the State Bar of Texas, with the number of African American, Hispanic and Asian members growing.
From 2008 through 2009, the Young Lawyers Association’s race demographics included 6 percent African American members, 11 percent Hispanic members, and 5 percent Asian members. During the same time period, demographics for the State Bar of Texas membership included 4 percent African American members, 7 percent Hispanic members and 2 percent Asian members.
“I think [the race demographics] reflect the state’s changing demographics,” White said. “I know from being in Leadership Fort Worth, Tarrant County has a growing Asian population, which is also growing in colleges and law schools. And, I think clearly the Hispanic population is growing in this state, and we have a very active Hispanic Law Association group. And, I think law schools have done a better job of letting folks know that there are jobs available to them they didn’t think existed before.”
More often today than in the past, law schools are working on diversity initiatives to let possible applicants know that law schools and the legal profession need to be more diverse and reflect the world’s population, White said.
“Implicitly or explicitly, a lot of law schools weren’t as open about that in the past as they are now, which I think, as an African American, is a good thing,” he said. “For this law school, at Texas Wesleyan, it’s a melting pot.”
Texas Wesleyan has seen a growing number of student organizations representing Hispanic, African American and Asian law students, White said, and those groups often work with one another on events and programs.
Diversity in law, or any in work place setting, is important because the world is continuing to meld into a global economy, White said. Willingham added that law firms more often are opening up overseas branches, and the value of attorneys who speak different languages is growing as well.
“When I was kid, all the cars you saw were made in the U.S., which isn’t happening anymore,” he said. “We are in a global economy, with countries doing business with people who don’t look like us and it’s reflective of the world we live in. I think people sometimes see diversity and think ‘What does that mean?’ It means the reality of life. We can’t close our borders, whether we like it or not… This is not the country it was 100 years ago, and this is the 21st century, we have to react to it and be ahead of the curve.”
