More than 40 percent of law students in the US are women. That’s almost double their percentage in 1985. Although women can now gain admittance to law school with relative ease, they face gender-based barriers once they enter the legal profession. Discrimination and the lack of high-income job opportunities for women lawyers make them leave the practice at significantly higher rates than their male peers.

Job opportunities for women lawyers are plentiful in public interest law, where compensation is significantly lower than those of private corporate law firms. Public interest work includes drafting laws for senators, assisting the County Counsel, or working in government legal departments. Many public interest firms recruit women lawyers for cases like sexual harassment which they regard as “women’s issues”. Women lawyers also do a lot of pro bono work.

Few women are able to climb the ranks and reach leadership positions; even fewer are women who become judges, law professors, or law firm managers. Rarely does a law firm make a woman lawyer partner.