Equality at the Starting Line? Gender- and Race-Based Differences at the Transition From Law School to Legal Profession

• In Event: 69.029 - On Diversity and Culture

Abstract

Guided by Bourdieu’s theorization of cultural, social, and economic capitals, this study used a national dataset to investigate how law graduates’ cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds may play a role in the number of job offers they received from private and public employers at graduation, and how job offers as an outcome of legal education influence individuals’ income. Findings revealed that White and male graduates received significantly higher numbers of job offers from private law firms than their minority and female counterparts, respectively; and their annual income was positively related to the number of offers from private employers, but negatively related to the job offers from public interest employers after controlling for individual differences in cultural, economic, and social capitals.

Author

• Yonghong Jade Xu, The University of Memphis