by Arlene Brens, Fellow, 
National Women's Law Center 

Over the past three decades, an increasing number of women have joined the legal profession. In recent years, law schools have seen the number of female students increase, so that they now make up nearly half of all law students. In 2008, one-third of lawyers were women. But the federal judiciary has a long way to go before it reflects the current face of the profession.

Since Justice Sandra Day O’Connor retired in 2005, the Supreme Court counts a single woman among its nine Justices (a measly 11 percent). Forty-seven of the 164 active judges currently sitting on the thirteen federal courts of appeal are female (almost 29%). Although this overall percentage is consistent with the current percentage of women lawyers, in some of these courts the numbers are much more daunting:  for example, the Eighth Circuit has only one female judge among its eleven members, who is the only woman ever to have been appointed to that court. Women are also vastly underrepresented on the Tenth Circuit (where they make up about 17 percent of judges), First Circuit (20 percent), and the Federal Circuit (25 percent). In addition, around 25 percent of United States trial court judges were women in 2008.

For minority women, the numbers are even smaller. In total, there are forty-six minority women serving as active federal judges: 25 African-American women, 18 Hispanic women, and three Asian-American women.  There are no Native American women federal judges.  Eight of those women of color are seated on the federal courts of appeals, as follows:  three minority women sit on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, two sit on the DC Circuit, and one minority woman sits on each of the Seventh, Fourth, and Second Circuits. This means there are eight federal courts of appeals without a single judge who is a woman of color. 

Just a little background about why we strongly encourage President Obama to nominate a woman to replace Justice Souter on the Supreme Court.

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• Judges & the Courts
• Arlene Brens

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