SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Five years after a bombshell 2019 State Bar report exposed deep racial disparities in how California disciplines its lawyers, a new 2024 study shows those gaps are narrowing—but deep structural inequalities remain.
Released by the State Bar of California, the 2024 Attorney Discipline Disparities Study shows a narrowing gap in punishment among Black, Latino, and white attorneys. The rates of probation and disbarment—once significantly skewed against Black and Latino male lawyers—have, in the State Bar’s words, “hovered near zero” in disparity across the most recent five-year window.
“These results reflect a serious institutional commitment to equity and to restoring trust and fairness in a system that regulates one of the most powerful professions in society,” said Leah Wilson, executive director of the State Bar of California.
The 2024 findings draw directly from the methodology of a 2019 analysis conducted by UC Irvine sociologist George Farkas. That earlier report made headlines for laying bare that Black and Latino attorneys were more likely to receive complaints, have them escalated to investigations, and ultimately face more severe disciplinary outcomes—including disbarment—than their white peers.
That same study attributed the gap to four things: whether they had past discipline, whether others reported actions that triggered review, how many investigations were opened against them, and whether these lawyers had legal representation during the process.
To tackle these issues, the agency adopted two key reforms—the “Archived Complaints” policy, which hides closed, five-year-old complaints that never resulted in discipline from investigators’ view, and an “At-Risk” notice to encourage lawyers, especially those without counsel, to seek legal representation.
But a closer read of the report indicates that gains in equity tied to these interventions remain uneven—and, in some areas, disappointing. The Archived Complaints rule did reduce the average number of visible complaints across all racial groups. But even now, Black and Latino men still carry heavier complaint histories and are still more likely than white men to have new complaints move forward to investigation.
As for the At-Risk notice, while representation did rise steadily, most of the benefits went to white attorneys. Black, Latino, and Asian lawyers barely saw gains. From 2018 to 2023, white respondents saw representation rates rise from 15% to 23%, an increase of 8 percentage points. Black respondents, who started at a nearly identical rate of 14%, saw only a 4 percentage point increase by 2023. Asian and Latino respondents initially had higher representation rates in 2018, but after peaking in 2021 at 28% and 26% respectively, both groups saw declines, falling below their own 2018 levels by the end of 2023.
Moreover, the new analysis found no meaningful increase in representation directly following the At-Risk notice rollout. The steady upward trend in representation flattened after the policy began. The report suggests that broader forces, such as the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, may have played a larger role in shaping access to counsel than the notices themselves.
The report did, however, reaffirm what’s long been known by legal observers: that having a lawyer makes a difference in the outcome of a person’s case. In more than 2,000 cases studied, representation consistently reduced both the chance of discipline and the severity of penalties.
One of the study’s most glaring red flags is that solo practitioners—disproportionately lawyers of color and first-generation professionals—remain more than twice as likely to be investigated than attorneys in large firms or government posts.
According to the 2024 Attorney Discipline Disparities Study, solo practitioners—who make up 23% of California’s nearly 200,000 active attorneys—account for the largest share of cases forwarded to investigation. In 2024 alone, 41% of complaints filed against solo practitioners were escalated for further review. That rate towers over the 17% investigation rate seen among attorneys at large firms with over 200 lawyers.
The findings suggest that practice setting—not just race or gender—can significantly influence the likelihood of disciplinary action. While attorneys in law firms saw an average investigation rate of 36%, and corporate in-house counsel hovered around 38%, public-sector attorneys experienced far more leniency: just 13% of complaints against government lawyers led to an investigation.
The study also makes clear that attorney discipline doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The researchers note that structural factors—like economic instability, lack of access to resources, and the types of clients served—continue to shape which attorneys face complaints and how those complaints unfold.
In short, the system’s remaining disparities may be symptoms of broader racial inequality still embedded in the legal profession and society at large, according to the study.
