Michigan Resident Lawyer Employment Data - Part 5

Active Michigan Resident Lawyers Reported by Age – Part 5 by Don LeDuc, Professor of Law, Cooley Law School

Annually, the State Bar of Michigan collects detailed data regarding its membership, focusing on active Michigan resident lawyers–a focus followed in the seven-part analysis in this series. The data is supplied by and used with the permission of the State Bar. My thanks to Kristen Sewell, the current Research and Analytics Director at the State Bar of Michigan and Anne Vrooman, recently retired from that position, for their work in gathering and providing this information. The data provides an opportunity to examine objectively both the changes from year-to-year and the implications of those changes. 

Part 5–Active Michigan Resident Lawyers–By Reported Age reflects the State Bar’s practice to report the age of Michigan’s lawyers in two ways: by generation and by age group. Chart 7 uses five familiar generational categories to reflect the active resident bar. Chart 8 identifies three lawyer groups by age:  (1) lawyers under age 40, (2) lawyers age 60 or older, and (3) lawyers of ages in between the two other age groups. Two aspects of Michigan’s lawyer population are evident:  the bar membership is aging, particularly in the rural areas; most younger and newer lawyers are seeking employment in the urban areas.   

Chart 7 shows that 11,854 (34.2%) of the Bar’s active Michigan resident members are age 63 and over, and that 9,113 are younger than age 43 (26.3%).

This chart shows that the least populous counties have the fewest younger lawyers, and that the Most populous counties have the most younger lawyers.  Part 6 will present this data accumulated by Michigan’s regions.