Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-n9wrp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-23T00:17:55.886Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Six Score Years and Ten: Demographic Transitions in the American Legal Profession, 1850-1980

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2024

Terence C. Halliday
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper employs data from the United States Census to raise questions about the historical demography of the legal profession in the United States between 1850 and 1980. I describe in turn (1) national lawyer population trends, (2) regional shifts in the number and ratio of lawyers to population, and (3) changes in the gender composition of the profession. The paper then considers issues concerned with demand theories of lawyer population dynamics, monopoly and supply theories, and theories of gender segmentation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , 1986 , pp. 53 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 by The Law and Society Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Law and Society Annual Meeting, Boston, 1984. I am indebted to Kent Smith and Richard Abel for their comments, although they do not necessarily endorse my interpretations.

References

ABEL, Richard L. (1979) “The Rise of Professionalism,” 6 British Journal of Law and Society 83.Google Scholar
ABEL, Richard L. (1981) “Toward a Political Economy of Lawyers,” 1981 Wisconsin Law Review 1117.Google Scholar
AMERICAN BAR FOUNDATION (1956) Lawyers in the United States: Distribution (1956). Chicago: American Bar Foundation.Google Scholar
BERLANT, Jeffrey L. (1975) Profession and Monopoly: A Study of Medicine in the United States and Great Britain. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
CARLIN, Jerome E. (1962) Lawyers on Their Own: A Study of Individual Practitioners in Chicago. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
CURRAN, Barbara A., ROSICH, Katherine J., CARSON, Clara N., and Mark C., PUCCETTI (1985) The Lawyer Statistical Report: A Statistical Profile of the U.S. Legal Profession in the 1980s. Chicago: American Bar Foundation.Google Scholar
CURRAN, Barbara A. (1986) “American Lawyers in the 1980s: A Profession in Transition,” 20 Law & Society Review 19.Google Scholar
EPSTEIN, Cynthia Fuchs (1981) Women in Law. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
FOSSUM, Donna (1980) “Women Law Professors,” 4 American Bar Foundation Research Journal 903.Google Scholar
FREIDSON, Eliot (forthcoming) Professional Powers: A Study of the Institutionalization of Formal Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
HALLIDAY, Terence C. (1983) “Professions, Class and Capitalism,” 24 European Journal of Sociology 321.Google Scholar
HALLIDAY, Terence C. (forthcoming) Beyond Monopoly: The Politics of Expertise in a Mature Profession. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
HEINZ, John P., and Edward O., LAUMANN (1982) Chicago Lawyers: The Social Structure of the Bar. New York/Chicago: Russell Sage Foundation/American Bar Foundation.Google Scholar
LANDON, Donald D. (1982) “Lawyers and Localities: The Interaction of Community Context and Professionalism,” 1982 American Bar Foundation Research Journal 459.Google Scholar
LARSON, Magali Sarfatti (1977) The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MARCH, J. G., and H. A., SIMON (1958) Organizations. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
MENKEL-MEADOW, Carrie (in press) “Portia in a Different Voice: Speculation on a Women's Lawyering Process,” Berkeley Women's Law Journal.Google Scholar
NELSON, Robert L. (1981) “Practice and Privilege: Social Change and the Structure of Large Law Firms,” 1981 American Bar Foundation Research Journal 95.Google Scholar
O'GORMAN, Hubert J. (1963) Lawyers and Matrimonial Cases: A Study of Informal Pressures in Private Professional Practice. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
PARKIN, Frank (1979) Marxism and Class Theory: A Bourgeois Critique. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
PARRY, N., and J., PARRY (1976) The Rise of the Medical Profession: A Study of Collective Social Mobility. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
PASHIGIAN, Peter B. (1978) “The Number and Earnings of Lawyers: Some Recent Findings,” 1978 American Bar Foundation Research Journal 51.Google Scholar
SIKES, Bette H., CARSON, Clara N., and Patricia, GORAI (eds.) (1972) The 1971 Lawyer Statistical Report. Chicago: American Bar Foundation.Google Scholar
SMIGEL, E. O. (1964) The Wall Street Lawyer: Professional Organization Man? New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
WOOD, Arthur L. (1967) Criminal Lawyer. New Haven: College and University Press.Google Scholar