TBJ NOVEMBER 2022
The Practice of Law in Texas
A 10-year snapshot of attorney demographics.
Written by Cory Squires and Steve Fischer
Knowing your audience is critical for a state bar and a practicing
attorney. The State Bar of Texas Department of Research and Analysis is
tasked with publishing comprehensive research information about the
legal profession in Texas to State Bar members, leaders, the public, and
other constituencies. This information helps the bar monitor growth to
better serve Texas attorneys. It also helps Texas attorneys better
understand their practices. Hopefully, you will see that some of it is
even fun.
The population of Texas attorneys has more than tripled since
co-author and El Paso attorney Steve Fischer became licensed in 1979
(growing from 33,246 to 108,816). Fischer is a numbers guy and a
self-proclaimed attorney demographer. He has put the data available from
the State Bar’s Department of Research and Analysis to use in his
career. In 1993, Fischer was looking for an interesting place to
practice. Discovering that Denton and Collin County had perhaps 30,000
Hispanics—many recent immigrants—but less than a handful of
Spanish-speaking attorneys, he found a need he wanted to meet. Pretty
soon Fischer had all the cases he could handle. This wouldn’t have been
possible without the research he did for a Texas Bar Journal
demographics article. Hopefully, you will discover that information
available to you might help you make a future career move.
The focus here will be to give a snapshot of changes in the past 10
years.
Major changes
Change can be a good thing. Presented here are some of the
most notable changes between 2011 and 2021.
The demographics of attorneys new to Texas have a big impact on all of
these changes. This includes those that graduate from Texas law schools
or come from jurisdictions outside of Texas.
A continued growth in diversity is clear when reviewing Texas law school
enrollment. Women make up 54% of enrollees (45% in 2011) and minority
attorneys make up 43% (27% in 2011).
Geography
Where shall I practice? It is no shock where the majority of
Texas attorneys are located. The four largest metropolitan areas contain
85% of all active in-state attorneys. Overall, there is one attorney to
every 310 Texas residents.
Over the past 10 years, 43% of counties (110 of 254) have seen their
attorney population decline or not grow at all. Jefferson County saw the
most significant decline of 80 attorneys, from 674 in 2011 to 594 in
2021. Counties that experienced a decline are mostly rural. There are
even six Texas counties with no attorneys. Does this present
opportunities for attorneys new to the practice?
In the past, when lawyers had children who became attorneys, many
would stay in their hometown and keep the family practice going for
another generation. With the growth of new generations, this may be
changing. Fischer’s son, Huey Rey Fischer, once said, “I’m not going to
practice in Rockport out of my house office like Dad. I have student
debt and need a real salary. I want to live in a big city.”
Some attorneys easily made the transition to remote work over the past
few years and can basically work from anywhere, which could have a big
impact on where they choose to live and work.
The map shows the counties that experienced the most growth since 2011. Four counties saw their attorney populations grow by more than 1,000 (Harris, Travis, Dallas, and Collin).
Economics
Show me the money. While the median income of Texas attorneys
grew by 18% from 2011 to 2021 ($105,959 to $125,202), it is still 3%
lower than the pre-2008 recession high of $129,322. The 2021 Texas
Attorney Survey found that 44% of attorneys saw their income increase
during that year.
The median income varies across the state. There are also notable differences between the sexes and race/ethnicity.
Did you know?
Something interesting. Even if stats aren’t your thing, there
is a wealth of fun (and not so fun) information that can be gleaned from
membership data.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. life
expectancy is 78. That compares to 75 for Texas attorneys. We would just
be guessing on why that is. Could it have to do with the fact that women
generally live longer (according to the CDC, the life expectancy for men
is 75.1 and for women it is 80.5) and men still make up the majority of
attorneys in Texas (62% are men and 38% are women)? We also have no idea
why there are so few attorneys with birthdays on February 29. Any
horoscope readers out there?
With an aging population, there are more and more attorneys practicing law that are 100 and older each year. In 2021, there were 27.
Generations.
In 2011, the baby boomers and Generation X made up 80% of the attorney
population. In 2021, that percentage dropped to 64%. Now, millennials
make up 31% of the attorney population.
Conclusion
What do you want to know? It is impossible to cover every
attorney demographic trend in one article. Please send your feedback on
the article or ideas for future articles on attorney statistics to tbjmail@texasbar.com.TBJ
CORY SQUIRES
is the director of the State Bar of Texas Research and Analysis
Department. He has been with the State Bar for 14 years. Squires came to
the bar after completing his master’s degree at Texas State University,
focusing on population geography and urban planning.
STEVE FISCHER
has been an elected State Bar director from the Corpus-Victoria district
(District 11) and now represents El Paso
(District 17). He has written Texas Bar Journal demographic
articles since 1992.
