California attorneys
The overall goal of the research reported here is to provide an objective and credible assessment of the future workforce needs for lawyers in the state of California through the year. The study was carried out under a contract from the university of California, whose responsibilities under the California Master Plan for Higher Education include helping to meet California?s workforce needs.
Among publicly supported institutions the University of California has the sole responsibility for providing certain types of professional education, including law. If the existing or expected supply of lawyers is likely to be unable to meet the states needs, then it would be appropriate for the University, along with other stakeholder institutions, to consider ways of addressing such imbalances. This project represents a first step toward understanding whether any supply demand mismatches are emerging that might warrant new policy initiatives.
Research objectives
Specifically, the project gathered both primary and secondary data to meet four main research objectives:
The first two objectives cited above are realized by acquiring and analyzing secondary data available through a number of sources. The latter two objectives are achieved by means of semi-structured interviews carried out with members of law school facilities, law firms and other experts. In addition, a narrowly focused review of relevant literature provided background information that helps research toward all four objectives.
Trends in the supply of lawyers
There are several key factors that have influenced the growth of the legal profession and its changing demographics, beginning with a combined effect of the baby boom and rising educational levels. The entry of women and members of minority groups into the profession has increased over the past several decades, increasing the diversity of the legal profession. In addition, the responses of American law schools to changes in the level of demand for legal education have played a major role in shaping the profession.
Wages of attorneys relative to those of all professionals
They examined both the real annual incomes and the real hourly wages of attorneys in each year and compared them to the same quantities for all professional workers. In accordance with the occupational designations used by the current population survey (CPS), they defined professional workers as those whose occupations fell within the census of population category of managerial and professional specialty occupations. These occupations included managers, accountants, attorneys, engineers, physicians, nurses, teachers and several others normally considered to be professional in nature. The CPS is a household survey conducted on a nationally representative sample and a description of the data.
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