New Partners 2025: Gender disparity remains as law firms bring in fewer partners in 2024

Missouri law firms saw a slight decrease in the number of new partners last year. The industry also continues to see fewer women promoted than their male counterparts.

In 2024, there was a dip of 9 percent in new partners and nearly 1.5 times as many men were named to the role than women.

Overall, there were 123 new partners among 38 law firms in Missouri. In 2023 there were 135 new partners among 46 firms. This continued a trend showing a decrease in new partners in the state each year as 2022 saw 167 new partners among 61 firms.

From 2023 to 2024, that is a relatively minor decrease of just 12 new partners. The decrease from 2022-2023 was sharper at a loss of 32.

Gender Disparity

Though the decrease is in-part likely due to fewer firms acquiring or promoting new partners in 2024, there remains a large gender disparity in the number of female new partners compared to males hired by or promoted by their firms.

Only 38 percent of new partners across Missouri are women while the remaining 62 percent are men. However, this percentage is significantly higher than last year’s and is even two percentage points higher than pre-pandemic numbers.

Over the past five years, there has been a steady slight downward trend of women making partner, Missouri Lawyers Media previously reported. Women comprised 41 percent of new partners in 2019, 36 percent in 2020 and 2021, 39 percent in 2022 and 28 percent in 2023.

In 2023, among attorneys registered with the Missouri bar, 36.9 percent were female compared to 35.4 percent based on 2018 data from the bar association. These numbers for 2024 were not available as of publication deadline.

However, the American Bar Association has declared 2016-2026 the “Decade of the Female Lawyer” and says the profession is expected to reach gender parity by 2026.

“Over the past decade, the percentage of lawyers who are women has grown. It stood at 36 percent in 2014 and grew to 41 percent a decade later in 2024,” according to the ABA’s 2024 Profile of the Legal Profession. “In other words, male attorneys still outnumber female attorneys (58 percent to 41 percent), but the gap is narrowing. U.S. law schools award more juris doctor degrees to women than men every year, while older lawyers — predominantly men — are retiring.”

Of all the firms in the state Polsinelli made the most women new partners and appointed six to the role.

Promotions and lateral hires

Most new partners (97) were promoted to the level of partner. The remaining partners were hired laterally.

In 2023 70 percent of new partners were promoted while the remaining 30 percent were lateral hires.

There was a slight increase in the number of lateral hires from 2022 to 2023 — from 35 to 41. That number dipped to 24 in 2024 with two new partners remaining uncategorized.

By the Numbers

Polsinelli welcomed the largest number of new partners in 2024 at 14. This was a mix of both lateral hires and promotions. The previous year the firm also was among those that welcomed the largest class of new partners and named 12 attorneys to the role in 2023.

In 2023, six of Polsinelli’s new partners were lateral hires, but in 2024 the majority were made partners through promotions within the firm.

After Polsinelli Husch Blackwell had the most new partners at 11 followed by Spencer Fane (9) and UB Greensfelder (8).

More than half of all new partners in the state (52.85 percent) are based in St. Louis. The next most popular city for new partners in Missouri is Kansas City at 36.5 percent. The other new partners announced this past year are scattered in Springfield, Columbia and other small cities.

Saint Louis University alumni represented the largest percentage of new partners at 25.3 percent, followed by Washington University at just under 15 percent.

The New Partners list is based on email survey responses submitted by Missouri law firms as well as press releases and announcements for new hires throughout the year. The list includes partners named or hired in 2024 after last year’s list and announcements ending in early January. As a result, our list may not match firms’ internal counts.

Freelance researcher Jennie Goodman contributed to this report.