Women in U.S. Law Schools, 1948–2021

Abstract

We study the progress of women’s representation and achievement in law schools. To do this, we assemble a new dataset on the number of women and men students, faculty, and deans at all ABA-approved U.S. law schools from 1948 to the present. These data enable us to study many unexplored features of women’s progress in law schools for the first time, including the process by which women initially gained access to each law school, the variance in women’s experiences across law schools, the relationship between women’s representation and student achievement, and the extent to which women disproportionally occupy interim and non-tenure track positions. We contextualize our findings by situating them within the vast qualitative literature on women’s experiences in law schools and the legal profession.