March 20, 2006 8:49 AM

Where did all the women lawyers go?
Posted by Diane Danielsonat 8:49 AM

The New York Times takes a look at why women are graduating law schools in equal numbers to the men, yet the women are still not making it into the partnership:

Although the nation's law schools for years have been graduating classes that are almost evenly split between men and women, and although firms are absorbing new associates in numbers that largely reflect that balance, something unusual happens to most women after they begin to climb into the upper tiers of law firms. They disappear.

According to the National Association for Law Placement, a trade group that provides career counseling to lawyers and law students, only about 17 percent of the partners at major law firms nationwide were women in 2005, a figure that has risen only slightly since 1995, when about 13 percent of partners were women.