Abstract
Our project aims at determining whether discrimination could account for the well-documented under-representation of women and minorities among equity partners in law firms. To that end, we exploit the panel data collected by the American Bar Foundation’s ‘After the JD’ (AJD) project. The three waves of the AJD survey provide in-depth information on the career trajectories of a nationally representative cross-section of almost 5,000 law graduates admitted to the bar in 2000 over the first twelve years of their careers. Our primary goal is to detect whether female/minority lawyers are held to a higher standard when the decision of promotion from associate to equity partner is made. To that purpose, we turn to the outcome test methodology pioneered by Gary Becker. A finding that female/minority partners bill more hours, exceed expectations, or bring in more matters, at the margin, would suggest discrimination. We can also perform a symmetric marginal outcome test on the most productive lawyers who reported that they strongly aspired to become equity partners but failed. Ceteris paribus, a finding that the most productive female/minority lawyers who missed promotion are more productive than their male/white peers post promotion denial would again be consistent with a higher standard being applied to them at the promotion decision stage. This research connects economics to human resource management and organizational behaviour. It will benefit the legal profession and contribute to the community at large by providing objective tools to the issue of female/minority under-representation in executive positions.
Presenters
Stephane MechoulanAssociate Professor, School of Public Administration, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Outcome test, Law firm, Partner, Discrimination, Gender, Race
