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Six Score Years and Ten: Demographic Transitions in the American Legal Profession, 1850-1980

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2024

Terence C. Halliday
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Abstract

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This paper employs data from the United States Census to raise questions about the historical demography of the legal profession in the United States between 1850 and 1980. I describe in turn (1) national lawyer population trends, (2) regional shifts in the number and ratio of lawyers to population, and (3) changes in the gender composition of the profession. The paper then considers issues concerned with demand theories of lawyer population dynamics, monopoly and supply theories, and theories of gender segmentation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , 1986 , pp. 53 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 by The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Law and Society Annual Meeting, Boston, 1984. I am indebted to Kent Smith and Richard Abel for their comments, although they do not necessarily endorse my interpretations.

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