Association of American Law Schools

Statistical Report on Law School Faculty And Candidates for Law Faculty Positions

2002-03

Prepared by Richard A. White, AALS Research Associate/Data Analyst

<<<Back to Table of Contents

Revisions to Data Presented in Earlier AALS Statistical Reports

In addition to showing the 2002-03 data on law school faculty and candidates for law faculty positions, this report includes revised data from previous years (1990-91 through 2001-02). These data should be used to replace the data presented in earlier AALS Statistical Reports. All of the statistics shown in these tables have been revised. The revisions include the following.

• Percentages of law faculty with missing ethnic/racial information have been decreased by searching for these data across all thirteen years included in the AALS historical databases. For example, an individual may not have provided ethnic information in 1992-93, but did provide it in 1995-96. The revision allows the 1995-96 data to be included in the 1992-93 statistics. The reverse also may have occurred; a person may not have provided ethnic information in 2000-01, but did provide it in 1996-97. The results show statistics with significantly lower percentages of missing data for all thirteen years (e.g., in the 2001-02 Statistical Report, 8.5 percent of that year’s faculty were missing ethnic/racial information; in the revised data, that percentage was reduced to 7.1 percent and the percentage of minority faculty increased from 14.6 percent to 14.7 percent). Table 2C (Appendix A) updates Table 1A for the previous 12 years.

• Data on new law school faculty have been revised in two ways. First, the additional ethnic/racial information had a significant effect on these statistics. Second, the numbers of faculty included as “new faculty” are lower for some years in the revised tables. In previous Reports, some of the “new faculty” data included faculty at new AALS member or fee-paid schools who were not actually new to law teaching. The revised statistics exclude these individuals from the “new faculty” data. The revised tables show substantial changes (e.g., in the 2001-02 Statistical Report, 31.7 percent of that year’s “new faculty” were missing ethnic/racial information; in the revised data, that percentage was reduced to 19.0 percent; and the percentage of minority “new faculty” decreased from 24.5 percent to 22.9 percent). Table 4C (Appendix B) updates Table 3A and Tables 4, 4A, and 4B in Statistical Reports for previous years.

• Beginning with the statistics shown in the 2001-02 Statistical Report, persons who identified themselves as belonging to multiple ethnic/racial groups are categorized differently from the categorization in earlier Reports. In earlier years, all those selecting more than one group were categorized in the Statistical Reports as “Other Minority.” In the revised categorization used throughout this report (including the updated statistics for earlier years), persons identified as “White” and a single minority group are categorized with the minority group (e.g., “White and Asian” is categorized as “Asian”); and only those identified with multiple minority groups are categorized with the “Other Minority” group (e.g., “Black and Asian” and “Black and Hispanic and White” are categorized as “Other Minority”).

• Historical statistics and analyses of Faculty Appointments Register candidates also have been revised by adding ethnic/racial information from the thirteen years of historic Directory of Law Teachers data, and by re-categorizing persons belonging to multiple ethnic/racial groups (as described above). Tables 6A and 6B update data presented in earlier Reports in Tables 5A, 5B, 6A, and 6B. Tables 7A through 7E and 8A through 8E update analyses shown previously in those tables. Tables 8A through 8E show particularly notable revisions due to the substantial changes in the “new law faculty” data.

All Full-Time Faculty in the 2002-2003 Directory of Law Teachers

The AALS Directory of Law Teachers, 2002-2003 includes demographic information on the 9,673 full-time faculty members of 187 law schools. The 164 AALS member and 23 fee-paid law schools include all of the law schools on the approved list of the American Bar Association. Table 1A shows the gender and minority composition of that group within 12 faculty title categories.

The first column shows the “total number” of faculty in each of the title groups and the second column indicates the percentages of those numbers that are women. Overall, 34.2 percent of all law school faculty members listed in the AALS Directory are women. One-half (50.1 %) of assistant professors and 46.9 percent of associate professors are women; 25.2 percent of full professors are women. Higher percentages of lecturers/instructors (66.6%), assistant deans without professor titles (69.1%), assistant deans with professor titles (52.9%), and associate deans without professor titles (57.5%) are women. Fifteen and one-half percent of law school deans are women.

The numbers with ethnic/racial information available are shown in the third column and the percentages with missing ethnic data are shown in the fourth column. The minority and minority-gender data are calculated as percentages of the faculty for whom ethnic/racial information is available. The fifth column shows that 14.8 percent of all faculty for whom ethnic/racial information is available are members of minority groups. More than one-fourth of assistant professors (25.8%) and associate professors (26.0%) belong to minority groups; 12.3 percent of full professors belong to minority groups. The minority percentage of lecturers/instructors (13.6%) is lower than those for assistant and associate professors, as are the percentages of associate deans without professor titles (16.4%), associate deans with professor titles (12.5%), and assistant deans with professor titles (11.8%). The minority percentage of assistant deans without professor titles (23.6%) is similar to those for assistant and associate professors. Of the 181 law school deans for whom ethnic/racial information is available, 8.8 percent belong to minority groups.

Table 1B shows the distribution of the faculty across five ethnic groups, American Indian (or Alaskan Native), Asian (or Pacific Islander), Black, Hispanic, and White. Faculty members also may select “Other” as their ethnic/racial classification. Persons identified as “White” and a single minority group are categorized with the minority group (e.g., “White and Asian” is categorized as “Asian”); those identified with multiple minority groups are categorized with the “Other Minority” group (e.g., “Black and Asian” and “Black and Hispanic and White” are categorized as “Other Minority”).

For all faculty, the percentages belonging to individual ethnic/racial groups are 0.7 percent American Indian, 2.2 percent Asian, 7.4 percent Black, 3.3 percent Hispanic, 1.1 percent Other Minority, and 85.2 percent White. For assistant professors, the percentages are 1.2 percent American Indian, 4.8 percent Asian, 11.0 percent Black, 6.4 percent Hispanic, 2.4 percent Other Minority, and 74.2 percent White. For associate professors, they are 1.2 percent American Indian, 3.9 percent Asian, 14.0 percent Black, 4.6 percent Hispanic, 2.2 percent Other Minority, and 74.0 percent White. And for professors, they are 0.5 percent American Indian, 1.8 percent Asian, 6.0 percent Black, 3.0 percent Hispanic, 1.0 percent Other Minority, and 87.7 percent White.

<<<Back to Table of Contents