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This paper analyzes correlates of status in the legal profession, arguing that the study of intraoccupational status attainment not only is important in its own right but can also illuminate the processes of interoccupational status attainment. Data on a national sample of lawyers indicate that while entry into the profession is strongly correlated with characteristics of family of origin, within the profession these characteristics do not have substantial direct or indirect effects on attainment. Longitudinal comparisons indicate that these relationships have been fairly constant over the past fifteen years, and cross-city comparisons reveal unsystematic variation among cities in the correlates of status attainment. The concluding section of the paper considers the implications of these findings for the legal profession and for the study of status attainment at the interoccupational level.
Howard S. Erlanger (Sat,) studied this question.