Women once again dominated law school classrooms in 2024, leaving men further behind
Women outnumbered men in law school classrooms across the United States for the ninth year in a row in 2024, according to the most recent data from the American Bar Association (ABA).
Here at Enjuris, we’ve been tracking gender enrollment in law schools for almost a decade because we believe female representation is important in the legal field.
At the dawn of the 20th century, women made up less than five percent of all law students. When Enjuris began tracking gender enrollment in 2016, female enrollees surpassed male enrollees for the first time. Since then, the gender gap has grown 6 percentage points.
While we acknowledge and celebrate the substantial gains in women’s representation over the years, recent data brings to light other emerging trends worth considering. The steep decline in male enrollment and the increasing number of students who choose not to disclose their gender present new dimensions in the evolving narrative of gender diversity in legal education.
Breaking down gender representation in U.S. law schools
The number of women enrolled in Juris Doctorate programs moved past 50 percent for the first time in 2016. Female enrollees then outnumbered male enrollees in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.
In 2024, women once again outnumbered men in law school classrooms. Specifically, women made up 56.09 percent of all students in ABA-approved law schools.
The percentage of women attending law school dipped just slightly from 2023, when 56.25 percent of all students in ABA-approved law schools were women.
Female enrollment in top-ranked law schools (as ranked by U.S. News & World Report)
Women have made tremendous gains in top-ranked law schools. Remarkably, 17 of the top 20 law schools in 2024 have more female attendees than male attendees.
For context, only 4 of the top 20 law schools had more female law students than male law students in 2016, the first year women surpassed men in law school enrollment.
Overall law school rankings by female enrollment
The majority of law schools (84.69 percent) in the United States have more female students than male students.
Nevertheless, some law schools are particularly good at attracting women.
In 2024, Northeastern University School of Law, which hosts an annual Women in the Law conference designed to provide career guidance and professional development growth to female attorneys, maintained its position as the top law school for women based on female enrollment (69 percent).
Should we be worried about men?
The legal profession is starting to reap the rewards of women’s progress in law schools. In January 2024, the National Association for Law Placement announced that, for the first time ever, women were a majority of all law firm associates. Women became a majority of general lawyers in the federal government in 2020.
What's more, the number of female federal judges has increased dramatically since 1980, when there were only 46 federal judges. Today, one-third of all federal judges are women. Women are faring even better in state Supreme Courts, where they make up 43 percent of all high-court justices.
More women than ever are leading U.S. law schools. In 2000, only 10 percent of law school deans were women. Presently, 42 percent of all law school deans are women, according to Rosenblatt’s Deans Database.
On top of all that, women now constitute 44 percent of law school faculty members, a significant increase from the 1980s when they made up only 20 percent.
This is not to suggest that women no longer face challenges in the legal profession. Women—particularly women of color—are still underrepresented in many leadership roles. In law firms, for instance, women accounted for only 27.76 percent of partners in 2023, according to the National Association of Women Lawyers. While this marks an increase from 26.65 percent in 2022, it highlights the slow pace of progress.
Nevertheless, while women have made significant strides in law schools, this progress contrasts sharply with the marked decline in male enrollment.
The number of men in law schools has declined every year for the past 14 years—from 78,516 male enrollees in 2010 to 49,028 male enrollees in 2024.
To understand the dramatic decline in male law students, it helps to look at the roots of the modern education gap.
According to The New York Times, girls in the United States are 14 percent more likely to be “school ready” than boys at age four. By high school, two-thirds of the students in the top ten percent of the class are girls, while two-thirds of the students at the lowest decile are boys.
Colleges and universities in the United States now enroll six women for every four men. The trend isn’t new. Women in the United States have earned more bachelor’s degrees than men every year since the mid-1980s.
Brookings Institution Scholar Richard Reeves pointed out that men accounted for 57 percent of college and university students in 1970. Two years later, Congress passed Title IX to prohibit sex-based discrimination in schools that received federal funding. The gender gap is much larger in the other direction today, begging the question: What, if anything, should be done about it?
Law students who do not identify as male or female
In 2016, the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar began allowing law students to select “other” when asked to identify their gender.
Following this change, the number of law students selecting “other” showed a notable increase over the years.
Law students identifying as “other” (2016-2022)
| Year | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
| Total | 40 | 49 | 109 | 149 | 232 | 337 | 682 |
| Percentage | .04% | 0.04% | .10% | 0.13% | 0.20% | 0.31% | 0.58% |
In 2023, the ABA expanded the gender identification categories, replacing “other” with “another gender identity” and “prefer not to report.”
Here’s what the numbers looked like in 2023:
Law students identifying as “another gender identity” or “preferring not to report” in 2023
| Category | Total students | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Another gender identity | 416 | 0.36% |
| Prefer not to report | 632 | 0.54% |
| Combined total | 1,048 | 0.9% |
And here's what the numbers looked like in 2024:
Law students identifying as “another gender identity” or “preferring not to report” in 2024
| Category | Total students | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Another gender identity | 627 | 0.54% |
| Prefer not to report | 1,022 | 0.89% |
| Combined total | 1,649 | 1.43% |
As you can see, the number of students identifying with a different gender or choosing not to disclose their gender is rapidly increasing.
The 2024 data also revealed the top ten law schools with the highest enrollment percentages in these new categories:
More Enjuris resources you might like
- Law school attrition rates (2023)
- Law school enrollment by race & ethnicity (2023)
- Where do women go to law school? (2021)
- When you want a female personal injury lawyer, will one be available?
- How your race and gender could impact your injury settlement
- Enjuris resources for students
About Enjuris®
Enjuris.com is a collection of independent legal resources designed to help people with their biggest questions following an accident or injury. Through instructive articles written by experienced attorneys, printable forms, and a free legal directory, Enjuris provides injury victims with the information and tools they need to take the next step. In keeping with its mission, Enjuris.com also provides promising college and law school students with scholarships and other resources to help them one day become effective lawyers.
Data source: American Bar Association, ABA Required Disclosures (Standard 509 Reports). Any mistakes in data reported to the ABA are the responsibility of the reporting school. Enjuris assumes no responsibility for inaccuracies or for changes in such information that may occur after publication. The figures here are as reported on December 18, 2023. Schools may update their data at any time. Please see the ABA website for up-to-date figures.