The Impact of COVID-19 on Women in Law

Female attorneys—especially Black female attorneys—left the workforce in droves during the pandemic. The industry needs to act.

During COVID-19, over 104,000 female attorneys dropped out of the labor force. Almost 37% of those were Black. The number of Black female attorneys active in the labor force dropped by 55% during the pandemic. Here’s why it may have happened—and what the industry needs to know and do now.

In the past decade, and especially since 2014, steady progress has been made in terms of the number of female attorneys active in the U.S. labor force. While the overall number of active attorneys in the United States increased from 1.22 million in 2014 to 1.24 million in 2020, the number of female attorneys increased by almost 46%, from around 347,000 in 2014 to about 506,000 in 2020, according to U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey (CPS) data.