1 See, e.g., Jerold S. Auerbach, Unequal Justice: Lawyers and Social Change in Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976).Google Scholar

2 Erwin O. Smigel, The Wall Street Lawyer: Professional Organization Man? (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969); John P. Heinz & Edward O. Laumann, Chicago Lawyers: The Social Structure of the Bar (New York: Russell Sage Foundation and American Bar Foundation, 1983).Google Scholar

3 Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Women in Law (New York: Basic Books, 1981).Google Scholar

4 For a summary of trends in the gender and racial composition of individual law schools, see American Bar Association, Review of Legal Education in the United States (Chicago: American Bar Association, 1972–83).Google Scholar

5 See, e.g., Jack Katz, Poor People's Lawyers in Transition (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1982); Malcolm B. Spector, Legal Careers and Government Service: A Study in the Social Psychology of Occupations (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1971); Heinz & Laumann, supra note 2.Google Scholar

6 Spilerman, Seymour, Careers, Labor Market Structure, and Socioeconomic Achievement, 83 Am. J. Soc. 551 (1977).Google Scholar

7 Charles L. Cappell, A Perspective on Law School Attainment and the Reproduction of Status (Paper presented at the annual meetings of the Law and Society Association, Madison, Wisconsin, June 1980); Heinz & Laumann, supra note 2; Smigel, supra note 2.Google Scholar

8 Smigel, supra note 2. For a general analysis, see Magali Sarfatti Larson, The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis 190–99 and the references thereto. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977).Google Scholar

9 Nelson, Robert L., Practice and Privilege: Social Change and the Structure of Large Law Firms, 1981 A.B.F. Res. J. 95.Google Scholar

10 The proportion sampled within each firm varied by less than 10% across firms.Google Scholar

11 Nelson, supra note 6.Google Scholar

12 The typology of firms has proven useful in the larger project of which this article is a part in explaining data on the organization of work, the nature of authority, the character of lawyer-client relationships, and so forth. Hence it has demonstrated some breadth of explanatory power. See Robert L. Nelson, Practice and Privilege: The Social Organization of Large Law Firms (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1983).Google Scholar

13 The rather extraordinary access that the firms allowed for the conduct of this study also may lead some to wonder if the firms are peculiar in some way—whether they are particularly placid or particularly open. Although all law firms are in some sense unique, I do not believe these four firms are any more peculiar than any other four that might have been selected to meet the needs of the research design. All four firms were approached with great care; all proceeded judiciously to consider allowing access. Two of the firms granted access in stages, although they eventually allowed the same amount and kind of data collection. A fifth firm balked at allowing widespread random sampling. I concluded that the range of variation provided by the other four firms was adequate and that the additional expenditure of resources on an organization that had not granted comparable access was not justified. A condition for the research was a guarantee of anonymity. While this limits some of the detail in my account, the analysis has been reviewed by readers who know the identities of the firms and are sufficiently familiar with their organization to provide a check on my analysis.Google Scholar

14 Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology eds. Guentner Roth & Claus Wittich (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978). For a general critique of the ideal-type of bureaucracy as an ahistorical concept, see Reinhardt Bendix, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978).Google Scholar

15 Ladinsky, Jack, Careers of Lawyers, Law Practice, and Legal Institutions, 28 Am. Soc. Rev. 47 (1963); Heinz & Laumann, supra note 2, esp. ch. 6 at 167–200.Google Scholar

16 Smigel, supra note 2, at 36–47, 72–74.Google Scholar

17 Id. at 39.Google Scholar

18 Id. at 173.Google Scholar

19 Id. at 45, 65–67.Google Scholar

20 Id. at 45–47.Google Scholar

21 Jerome E. Carlin, Lawyers on Their Own: A Study of Individual Practitioners in Chicago (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1962).Google Scholar

22 Heinz & Laumann, supra note 2, at 182–198.Google Scholar

23 The ethnicity and religious backgrounds of lawyers were divided into four groups: Jewish, Roman Catholic, non-Jewish and non-Catholic Northern and Western Europeans, non-Jewish and non-Catholic “others.” The chi-square for the cross-tabulation with firms was 32.582, p = .0002.Google Scholar

24 Longitudinal inferences from cohort data must be made with caution because we do not know anything about members of the original cohort who may have left the organization prior to our survey.Google Scholar

25 Only 3 (1.3%) of the lawyers drawn in the random sample were black, Hispanic, or Oriental. This is typical of the pattern in large firms in major cities. See Carol McHugh, “Many Firms Slow to Hire Minority Lawyers,” Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, Apr. 23, 1983, p. 13. While it is true that the proportion of minority graduates from major law schools has not grown as rapidly as the proportion of women graduates over the past decade, minorities are still substantially underrepresented in large firms. The percent of minority enrollment in 20 leading law schools grew from 11.4% to 12.6% from 1973 to 1981. See American Bar Association, supra note 4, for years 1973–81.Google Scholar

26 Our categories of law schools are the same as those used by Heinz and Laumann. Six schools are included in the elite category: Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, Michigan, Stanford, and Yale. “Prestige” schools include Northwestern, Georgetown, Wisconsin, Virginia, California, Pennsylvania, New York University, and others. The “regional” category includes the Unviersity of Illinois and other Big Ten schools, plus Notre Dame and George Washington. The “local” law schools are Chicago-Kent, DePaul, Loyola, and John Marshall. Heinz & Laumann, supra note 2, at 15–16.Google Scholar

27 Growth rates were calculated from figures published by the American Bar Association, supra note 4, for the following law schools: Harvard, Michigan, Yale, Chicago, Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, NYU, UCLA, Boston University, Virginia, S.U.N.Y. at Buffalo, Hastings, Wisconsin, University of Washington at Seattle. The selection of this set is based on the somewhat controversial ranking of law schools in Jack Gourman, The Gourman Report: Ratings of Graduate and Professional Programs (Los Angeles: National Education Standard, 1982).Google Scholar

28 The difference is not an artifact of comparing older males with younger females. The difference in social backgrounds is statistically significant, (x²), P=.0028) for the youngest cohort, those lawyers hired since 1974.Google Scholar

29 Epstein, supra note 3, at 35.Google Scholar

30 For an extended discussion of the status-class dynamics of Chicago lawyers see Cappell, supra note 7.Google Scholar

31 Barbara Curran, Lawyers' Demographics: Preliminary Report of the 1980 Lawyers' Statistical Report. Presented to the Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association, New Orleans, August 1982.Google Scholar

32 Id.Google Scholar

33 Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory (Summit, N. J.: Martindale-Hubbell, 1983). Individuals whose gender was not clear from their names and who were otherwise unknown to the author were dropped from the tabulation.Google Scholar

34 Smigel, supra note 2; Epstein, supra note 3.Google Scholar

35 The major difference in previous employment among cohorts entering firms in different periods is the sharp rise in the proportion of lawyers working as judicial clerks among the group of lawyers hired since 1975.Google Scholar

36 The findings were originally reported in One in Three Associates Left Firms in 70s, Chicago Lawyer, June 1980, p. 7, col. 1. Baker and McKenzie, technically the largest firm in Chicago, with over 500 lawyers, was not included because an inordinate number of the lawyers are located in other cities and countries, posing difficulties of tracking entry and exit through the directory.Google Scholar

37 The American Lawyer Guide to Law Firms (New York: Am-Law, 1982).Google Scholar

38 Smigel, supra note 2, at 116–27.Google Scholar

39 Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory, supra note 33, for years 1970–79.Google Scholar

40 Nelson, supra note 8, at 125–26.Google Scholar

41 American Lawyer Guide, supra note 33.Google Scholar

42 I have treated nonequity partners as partners throughout analysis involving partnership status.Google Scholar

43 Sullivan's Law Directory for the State of Illinois (Barrington, Ill.: Sullivan's Law Directory, 1982).Google Scholar

44 Although there are no hard data on the differential rates of listing in lawyers' directories, lawyers in nonlegal positions, corporate law departments, teaching, and government are generally thought less likely to list.Google Scholar

45 New York firms traditionally have offered higher starting salaries. It has been suggested that Cravath, Swaine & Moore offered bonuses to associates who agreed to work on the IBM litigation, in part because it was seen as reducing the chances of making partner. Wall Street's True Blue Chip, National Law Journal, Jan. 14, 1980, p. 11, cols. 2, 3.Google Scholar

46 Michael T. Hannan, & Nancy Brandon Tuma (1977). Hannan, Michael T., Brandon Tuma, Nancy, & Groeneveld, Lyle P., Income and Independence Effects on Martial Dissolution: Results from the Seattle and Denver Income-Maintenance Experiments, 84 Am. J. Soc. 611 (1978). Brandon Tuma, Nancy, Hannan, Michael T., & Groenveld, Lyle P., Dynamic Analysis of Event Histories, 84 Am. J. Soc. 820–54.Google Scholar

47 The interviews elicited only skeletal career patterns focusing on major work-oriented events, many of which are reports of specialization. Perhaps if the interviews had probed more political aspects of organizational careers, such as sponsorship by mentors, perceptions about how the respondent had advanced and why, and so forth, the event data would have proved more rich.Google Scholar

48 Although the number of events in different periods was too small to allow meaningful statistical comparisons of firms during different periods, inspection revealed that many differences across firms existed in earlier periods. This pattern indicates that differences in bureaucratization have historical roots in organizations and do not emerge merely as a result of growth. It also underscores the fact that the general bureaucratization of large firms has occurred in specific, organizationally mediated fashion. It further suggests that the general nature of change in firms must be analyzed in a comparative organizational framework.Google Scholar

49 The incidence of these events did not vary significantly by cohort with the exception of gains in client responsibility. Almost one-fifth of the respondents hired before 1970 (18.6%) reported such gains compared with only 4.1% of the cohort joining in 1970–74 and only 1.8% of those joining after 1974 (p=.01, F). None of the interaction effects between firm and period joined were statistically significant.Google Scholar

50 Smigel, supra note 2.Google Scholar

51 Reasons for choosing a type of work which were not considered to be channeled by the firm were: interest prior to law school, interest from law school, liked it after exposure, liked people in the field, chose that department or type of work, related degree (CPA, MBA, etc.), happenstance, improved chances for advancement, appropriate work for a woman, thrust of firm's practice, provided broader practice. Reasons that were considered to be channeled by the firm were: assigned to it, firm asked me to, need for that work in firm, department or persons in department asked me to, hired for a specialty or already specialized in field.Google Scholar

52 Nelson, supra note 12.Google Scholar

53 A three-way analysis of variance of the proportion of respondents who considered themselves specialists entering firm, field, and years in practice as independent variables, did not yield statistically significant effects for field or for any interactions with field. While this result means that lower levels of self-perceived specialization by litigation associates can be explained, statistically—based on their lack of seniority—their status as the leading category of unskilled labor in firms should not be dismissed. Lack of seniority, lack of specialization, and work in litigation are too highly correlated for there to be a significant difference among fields net of the other variables. It is impossible and inappropriate to decompose the effects of the variables.Google Scholar

54 Weber, supra note 14.Google Scholar

55 Nelson, supra note 8.Google Scholar