The Law School Experience for Women of Color

Women of color report having different experiences in law school than their peers, which may be one reason they’re underrepresented among law professionals, according to a new study from the Center for Women in Law and the NALP Foundation. The study, which considered the perspectives of 4,000 students across 46 law schools, found that women of color were less satisfied with their law school experiences than their white cohorts and rated race relations at their schools less positively than even their male peers of color. Forty percent of women of color gave race relations a positive rating, compared to 70 percent of white men and 59 percent of nonwhite men. Thirty-one percent of women of color reported having seriously considered leaving law school, more than men of color (26 percent), white women (24 percent) and white men (22 percent). Black women were most likely to consider leaving, at 38 percent. Latinx women were the least likely group studied to consider leaving law school, at 22 percent. Debt is much higher for women of color than for their majority peers, according to the report.