Women continue to reach new levels, representing 52.09% of all associates and 29.55% of partners in 2025, shared National Association for Law Placement in its annual “Report of Diversity in U.S. Law Firms.”
Even though women made progress, the NALP said their representation among all lawyers declined slightly. For the second year, the percentage of women summer associates decreased, raising questions about the future talent pool.
There was little evidence of progress when it comes to racial diversity at U.S. law firms. Representation of partners of colors was flat compared to 2024, and the proportion of people of color among summer associates, associates and all lawyers declined.
NALP based the report on demographic information from the 2025 NALP Directory of Legal Employers.
Nikia Gray, executive director at NALP, said, “In this reporting cycle, 230 fewer law offices provided demographic information as part of their NDLE profiles compared to last year, representing the loss of data for roughly 47 firms and 31,000 lawyers. This new reluctance should concern all of us. Demographic data is not merely a collection of numbers. It represents real people, real experiences and real disparities.”
Here are the 2025 highlights:
Associates
Women comprised the majority of associates for the first time in 2023 and their representation continues to grow (a +0.5-percentage point year-over-year increase), reaching 52.09% in 2025.
The percentage of associates of color fell by 1.3 percentage points to 30.20%, the first decline since 2010. This decrease was observed across nearly all firm sizes, except for firms of 251-500 lawyers.
By race/ethnicity, much of this decline can be attributed to a decrease in the representation of Asian and Black associates. The proportion of Asian associates fell by 1.6 percentage points, to 11.70%, while the share of Black associates fell by 0.2 percentage point to 6.18%. These figures represent the lowest recorded since 2018 and 2015, respectively.
Partners
The share of women partners grew by 0.7 percentage point in 2025 to a new record high of 29.55%. Women and people of color remain significantly underrepresented within the partnership ranks.
The representation of partners of color was virtually unchanged in 2025 at 12.67%, compared to 12.73% in 2024. However, representation of Black partners declined by 0.2 percentage points, to 2.42%, marking the first decrease since 2014.
Within multi-tier law firms, white men remain disproportionately represented among equity partners. In 2025, however, women accounted for 26.5% of equity partners — a 1.7 percentage point improvement from 2024 and the largest year-over-year gain observed in NALP’s reporting dating back to 2011. The share of equity partners of color also grew, reaching 10.5%, a 0.3 percentage point increase. Both figures are all-time highs.
Summer associates
Although women still comprise the majority of summer associates, for the second year in a row their representation declined, this year decreasing by 0.2 percentage point to 55.26%.
Following a record high of 43.07% in 2024, the proportion of summer associates of color fell by 5.5 percentage points to 37.53% in 2025, the lowest level recorded since 2020.
Among summer associates of color, representation declined across nearly every racial/ethnic group, except for Native Hawaiian/other Pacific Islander and multiracial students.
Additional demographics
Overall, 3.06% of lawyers identified as having a disability, up from 2.54% in 2024. Associates were almost twice as likely to identify as having a disability as compared to partners (3.80% vs. 2.13%).
The percentage of LGBTQ+ lawyers fell by 0.2 percentage point in 2025 to 4.90%. Despite this overall drop in the representation of LGBTQ+ lawyers, the proportion of LGBTQ+ associates reached a record high of 7.87%, growing by 0.1 percentage point from 2024.
The share of military veteran lawyers increased by nearly 0.3 percentage point to 2.20% in 2025. Representation of military veterans was lower among associates (1.78%) compared to partners (2.31%).
By geography, Miami and Silicon Valley were the locations with the highest percentage of lawyers of color, while San Francisco and Silicon Valley had the largest share of women lawyers.
What the data shows
The findings underscore concerns highlighted in last year’s report about the fragile pipeline of diverse talent within the legal industry. However, this year’s figures should be interpreted cautiously when making comparisons to longer-term trends due to significant shifts in the 2025 respondent pool.
The data set reflects a substantial decline in the number of law offices that publicly shared demographic information through the NALP Directory, a widely used, searchable database that enables law students to research and compare prospective employers on factors such as practice areas, compensation and benefits, recruitment and hiring and lawyer demographics.
Read the entire “Report on Diversity in U.S. Law Firms” at www.nalp.org/reportondiversity.
