The law of supply and demand applies to lawyers too

NY Times:

More Law Degrees for Women, but Fewer Good Jobs

Female law students tend to be clustered in lower-ranked law schools, a new study found, putting them at a disadvantage in landing top legal jobs.
The fact is that men who graduate from the same law schools have the same problem as the women.  The supply of lawyers greatly exceeds the jobs available, and the top legal jobs have always gone to the top five or 10 percent of students at the top law schools.  That leaves those who did not get the top grades at the top law schools looking for jobs in smaller communities are setting up a practice in specialties like divorce.

I graduated from the University of Texas School of Law in 1971.  By the 1980's there were more lawyers in the city of Houston than there were in the whole state of Texas 10 years earlier.  That led to many graduates taking jobs in unrelated fields.  I think it is why you are also seeing law graduates as reporters and news readers on TV now.

In some areas of the law, the women probably have an advantage because large companies are looking for "diversity" candidates for jobs.  As a former General Counsel for a couple of different companies, I worked with women lawyers at the some of the top law firms in the country and they were every bit as sharp as their male colleagues.  I am sure they got their jobs because they were top graduates from top law schools.

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