Introducing Grievance Committee Glenda.
A California bar study has charted attorney discipline over a 28-year span and discovered that, by and large, black and Latinx attorneys are disciplined more often and their punishments are more severe than then comparable population of white lawyers.
This is, of course, not a huge surprise and confirms similar studies from a variety of other settings. Still, if one were holding out hope that the legal profession were somehow better, then we’ve got some bad news for you:
• The probation rate for male lawyers was 3.2% for blacks, 1.9% for Latinos, 0.9% for whites, and 0.8% for Asians. The probation rate for female lawyers was 0.9% for blacks, 0.5% for Latinos, 0.4% for whites, and 0.2% for Asians.
• The disbarment/resignation rate for male lawyers was 3.9% for blacks, 1.7% for Latinos, 1% for whites, and 1.1% for Asians. The disbarment/resignation rate for female lawyers was 0.9% for blacks, 0.5% for Latinos, 0.4% for whites, and 0.2% for Asians.
That’s a pretty hefty skew. The cynical could argue that black male and Latino attorneys just have more complaints against them than white men, which is true though not saying much given the public’s overwillingness to report minority attorneys. When the study attempted to control for the number of complaints, it found that “probation and disbarment/resignation rates would have been reduced to 1.4% and 1.6%, respectively, for black males, compared to the 0.9% and 1% totals, respectively, for white males.” That’s still a disparity, but a much less striking one, and one that might be conflated with different, overlapping racial inequities (e.g. more minority attorneys operating in smalls or solos instead of big firms exposing them to more financial complaints).
But knowing is half the battle as they say, and now California at least has some hard data to look at when attempting to tackle implicit bias. Other states may want to follow its lead.
New California bar study finds racial disparities in lawyer discipline [ABA Journal]
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.