Law School Rankings by Female Enrollment (2022)

Enjuris breaks down gender demographics in ABA-approved law schools in 2022 and beyond

Women outnumbered men in law school classrooms across the United States for the seventh year in a row in 2022, 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 beginning of the 20th century, women made up less than five percent of 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 5.66 percentage points.

We recognize and celebrate the incredible gains in women's representation over the years. But the trend does raise an important question: Should we be concerned about the dwindling number of male enrollees in law schools?

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, and 2021.

In 2022, women once again outnumbered men in law school classrooms. Specifically, women made up 55.75 percent of all students in ABA-approved law schools.

The percentage of women attending law school increased by 0.46 percent from 2021 when 55.29 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, 16 of the top 20 law schools in 2022 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 (82.65 percent) in the United States have more female students than male students.

Nevertheless, some law schools are particularly good at attracting women.

In 2022, 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 (72.08 percent).

Looking into the future

In 1960, women comprised only 3.5 percent of enrollees in ABA-approved law schools. Toward the end of the 1960s, women's enrollment began to increase due in large part to the Vietnam War and the Higher Education Act, which prohibited sex discrimination in federally funded educational programs.

From 1968 to 1981, the percentage of women in law schools grew from 4 to 35 percent.

Growth slowed in the 1980s and 1990s before picking up again in 2000 and then dipping briefly in 2008. In 2016, women outnumbered men in law school classrooms for the first time.

There's little reason to believe the percentage of women attending law schools will suddenly decline. If the trend that began in 2016 continues at its current pace, roughly 80 percent of law students in 2050 will be women.

The legal profession is starting to reap the rewards of women's progress in law schools. Women make up roughly 38 percent of practicing lawyers, compared to just 31 percent in 2010. The number of female federal judges has increased dramatically since 1980 when there were only 46 federal judges. Today, there are 424 women on the federal bench (nearly one-third of all federal judges). Women are faring even better in state Supreme Courts, where they make up 41 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, 43 percent of all law school deans are women, according to Rosenblatt's Deans Database at the Mississippi College School of Law.

What's more, 45 percent of law school faculty members are women. In the 1980s, women represented only 20 percent of law school faculty members.

None of this is to say that women don't continue to face hurdles in the legal field. Women—particularly women of color—remain underrepresented in many leadership positions. With respect to law firms, women made up only 26.65 percent of partners and only 22.6 percent of equity partners in 2022, according to the National Association of Women Lawyers.

"Three issues continue to be the biggest obstacles to a woman's advancement in the legal profession. They are traditional sexual stereotypes, inflexible workplace structures, and inadequate access to mentoring," says Deborah Rhode, Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law at Stanford University.

Are men in trouble?

While women are entering law schools at record numbers, men are increasingly turning away from them. The number of men in law schools has declined every year for the past 12 years—from 78,516 male enrollees in 2010 to 50,970 male enrollees in 2022.

To understand the steep 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?

In an apparent attempt to address the gender gap, Kursat Pekgoz, CEO of Doruk, and James Moore, a Stanford Law School alumnus and an emeritus professor at the University of Southern California, recently filed a lawsuit against Stanford alleging that the school violated Title IX of the Civil Rights Act by offering programs and scholarships to support women with no equivalents for men.

According to the complaint, the programs and scholarships are no longer necessary since women outnumber men in colleges and universities and outperform men academically.

The Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights is investigating the claim.

Law students who do not identify as male or female

The number of law students identifying as "other" has grown rapidly since 2016.

The term "other," according to the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, refers to "students who do not identify as male or female."

Although the number of law students identifying as other in 2022 is relatively small (682), it certainly warrants attention, given that the number has more than doubled since 2021.

More Enjuris research you might like

• Law school enrollment by race & ethnicity (2022)
• Where do women go to law school? (2021)
• Lawyer mental health and well-being
• 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, 2022. Schools may update their data at any time. Please see the ABA website for up-to-date figures.