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Revolving Doors: Social Dimensions of Law Firm Culture and Pathways out of Firms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2023

Fiona M. Kay
Fiona M. Kay*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6. Phone: (613) 533-6000 ext. 74486. E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

A growing body of research suggests that contemporary law firms face challenges with the retention of legal talent—especially women and racialized lawyers. Yet, we know little about the conditions that prompt lawyers to leave law firms or where they go after leaving. This article builds on the scholarship of John Hagan, emphasizing the role of social capital in law firm culture, and work by Emmanuel Lazega, tracing dimensions of law firm collegiality—both with implications for lawyers’ careers within and beyond law firms. I draw on data from a twenty-seven-year longitudinal survey of Canadian lawyers. Using piecewise exponential survival models, I examine organizational, cultural, and individual factors that may encourage mobility from law firms. The study reveals a pervasive gender difference that is not explained by human capital, organizational characteristics, or individual traits. Results also demonstrate the importance of social capital and firm culture—specifically, the presence of workplace policies of flexible scheduling, lawyers’ sense of a good match with their firm, their satisfaction with status rewards, and finally, the role of mentors—in shaping the flow of legal talent from law firms to various job destinations.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , November 2023 , pp. 1181 - 1209
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Bar Foundation

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Footnotes

This study was funded by a research grant from the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), the Law Society of Ontario (LSO), and a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The opinions contained in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the LSAC or the LSO. I thank Zinaida Zaslawski and Martine Rondeau for valuable research assistance. I also wish to acknowledge effective feedback from reviewers at Law & Social Inquiry that shaped supplemental analyses.

References

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