- Introduction
- The Survey Results
A total of 1,267 of the 7,000 intended recipients of the questionnaires mailed to the random sample of individual lawyers returned their questionnaires, a response rate of 18.1%. (App. A at 7.) Of the questionnaires that were returned, 34 were omitted by Dr. Andreasen from the analysis of the responses because they were returned by respondents who reported that they had not practiced in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area at any time during the last five years (the period covered by the survey), 20 responses were omitted because they came from sole practitioners, and 32 because they had been only partially completed. (Id. at 8.) Of the 1,181 responses included in the analysis, 1,068 (90.4%) came from lawyers who identified themselves as heterosexual, 93 (7.9%) from lawyers who identified themselves as gay or lesbian, and 20 (1.7%) from lawyers who identified themselves as bisexual. (Id. at Table 1.)14A total of 331 lawyer questionnaires were distributed to the purposive sample of lawyers believed to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Of these, 131 were returned, a response rate of 39.6%. (App. A at 8.) Dr. Andreasen excluded one of these questionnaires from the survey analysis because the respondent reported a heterosexual orientation, and a second because it had been only partially completed. Of the remaining 129 responses in the purposive sample, 127 (98.4%) came from respondents who identified themselves as gay or lesbian, and 2 (1.6%) came from respondents who identified themselves as bisexual. (Id. at Table 1)
The Employer Survey questionnaire was sent to a total of 715 employers in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, consisting of a diverse group of legal employers (i.e., small to large law firms, government agencies, corporations, trade associations, and public interest and other non-profit organizations). Of the 715 questionnaires sent out, a total of 118 were returned, a response rate of 16.4%. (App. B at 5.) Dr. Andreasen excluded one of the responses from the analysis because it had been only partially completed. Of the remaining 117 employer respondents, 105 (90%) have offices in the District of Columbia. The number of responding employers in each category (e.g., law firms with 51 or more lawyers) is set forth in Dr. Andreasen's Report on the Employer Survey. (App. B at 6.)
- The Survey Results
- In view of the small number of responses from bisexual lawyers (1.7% of the total of all respondents in the random sample), and in accordance with Dr. Andreasen's advice that these responses would not yield statistically meaningful results if analyzed separately, and because the bisexual respondents could also be subject to discrimination on the basis of their actual or perceived sexual orientation, these responses were grouped with those from the gay and lesbian respondents for purposes of the study. (App. A at 9.)
