John P. Heinz

Lawyers today are often accused of being so obsessed with the financial bottom line that they are unwilling or unable to participate in community service to the extent that lawyers of an earlier era did.

Data collected in the American Bar Foundation's 1975 and 1995 surveys of Chicago lawyers provided an opportunity for John P. Heinz (IPR-Law), Robert L. Nelson (IPR-Sociology), and Edward O. Laumann of the University of Chicago to test empirically whether the rate of lawyers' participation in voluntary organizations has changed over time.

Surprisingly, the popular impression proved to be incorrect. The researchers found that lawyers in 1995 were still engaged in community activities at about the same rate they were 20 years earlier. More than 70% of the respondents reported that they were "active" or a "leader" in at least one voluntary organization.

But while overall participation was about the same in the two years, a smaller percentage of the Chicago bar held leadership positions in voluntary organizations in 1995 (21%) than in 1975 (33%). But the rate of participation does not tell the whole story. In terms of actual numbers, the researchers estimate that more Chicago lawyers actually held leadership positions in 1995 than in 1975 because the number of lawyers doubled even though the percentage of leaders in the samples decreased by less than half.

"On the other hand," they note, "the number of leadership positions per lawyer declined by somewhat more than half, so we would estimate that the total number of leadership positions held by Chicago lawyers may have decreased, but not much, during that period."

The researchers also identified those factors associated with lawyers' participation in community organizations. Overall, they found that socially advantaged lawyers - those who are older, have higher incomes, are Protestant, and who attended "elite" law schools - were most likely to be active in most types of organizations.

One clear difference that emerged from the surveys was the significantly heightened participation of lawyers in religious organizations in 1995. This is likely a reflection of the "general resurgence of religion in American society," the authors suggest. Yet the survey data indicate strongly that, overall, the pattern of lawyers' community activities has remained quite stable over the last 20 years. Moreover, "such change as there is tends to be in socially approved directions," that is, undertaken out of a sense of civic duty or for altruistic reasons.

The findings are reported in the 1999 IPR working paper, "Lawyers' Roles in Voluntary Associations: Declining Social Capital?"