2016 seems to be widely accepted as the first year in history that women enrolled in juris doctor degrees outnumbered men at US law schools – 50.09% versus 49.46%. A small percentage, 0.45%, selected “other” for gender.
We wondered where exactly they’re going to school. Does the east look different from the west? The north from the south? Which schools have the most female law students? We broke it down in our latest infographic. The numbers are a bit surprising!
Demographic breakdowns for individual law schools is available in this chart.
Top schools
Here are the top 15 law schools by female enrollment:
| Law School | % Women |
| 1. Howard University | 69.70 |
| 2. Charlotte School of Law | 63.50 |
| 3. Northeastern University | 63.20 |
| 4. Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School | 62.70 |
| 5. City University Of New York | 62.20 |
| 6. North Carolina Central University | 62.00 |
| 7. American University | 61.60 |
| 8. Whittier Law School | 60.10 |
| 8. Florida A&M University | 60.10 |
| 9. District of Columbia | 59.90 |
| 10. California Western School of Law | 59.50 |
| 11. DePaul University | 58.50 |
| 12. California-Berkeley, University Of | 58.30 |
| 13. Inter American University of Puerto Rico | 58.20 |
| 14. Golden Gate University | 57.50 |
| 14. Texas Southern University | 57.50 |
| 15. New York Law School | 57.40 |
Highlights
Looking simply at gender data for law schools in the U.S., there are some outliers that make it really interesting. We examined the total percentages of women compared to men attending law schools in each state.
- Of California’s 20 law schools, a whopping 16 of those have more women JD enrollees than men.
- Women held the majority of J.D. seats in 5 of DC’s 7 law schools.
- 9 of Florida’s 12 law schools have female majorities.
- Illinois trended more towards male enrollees with 3 of the state’s 9 law schools having a higher percentage of women enrollees.
- Massachusetts has 8 law schools, of which 6 are dominated by female enrollees.
- Only 1 of Ohio’s 9 law schools has more female JD enrollees than male.
- All 3 Puerto Rican law schools have majority female enrollment.
- 3 out of 9 law schools in Texas have more women than men.
- Virginia is an interesting state, with 4 law schools male majority, 2 female majority, and Regent University splitting male/female 50% and other 50%.
Women law students outnumber men in:
- California
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Florida
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Minnesota
- Montana
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Dakota
- Rhode Island
- Vermont
- Washington, DC
- Puerto Rico
Source: American Bar Association 2016 ABA Required Disclosures (Standard 509 Reports).
The ABA reported 110,951 total J.D. enrollment as of Dec. 2016. When we looked at the data in March 2017, the numbers had shifted a bit. (The ABA told us that the data reported on their site is live and can be updated at any time by schools, apart from a period when the data is frozen at the end of the year.)