Restructuring in corporate law firms : implications of a changing division of labor for organizational inequality

Abstract

How do organizations contribute to inequality? An organization's division of labor is posited to codify inequality through the allocation of work tasks and matching of workers to given jobs. To explore this argument, I employ an actor- and task-based analytical framework to a recent wave of restructuring among corporate law firm associateships. Drawing from an interview study in the Boston and New York legal markets, I argue that restructuring the division of labor in this context generates nuanced, textured forms of inequality that reach beyond compensation. Such forms of inequality are borne out of the precise tasks allocated to workers, and include unequal distribution of opportunities to engage in upskilling, demonstrate competence and autonomy in the work process, and access and utilize valuable social relationships in the upper echelons of firm hierarchy - all shown to be crucial for advancement within firms and the profession. In the context of corporate law, these outcomes are associated with the sorting of lawyers into hierarchal strata of associateships based on law school affiliation, representing a new use of a known sorting mechanism in the legal labor market.