Only 9% of US lawyers are from ethnic minorities, even though they account for 25% of the US population at large, a report by the American Bar Association (ABA) concluded last week.

The ABA's Goal IX Report - which examines the representation of ethnic minorities in the US profession - praised the fact that the ABA's president, president-elect and a third of the body's senior positions are taken up by ethnic minority lawyers.

But it concluded: 'There is much left to do and a pipeline left to fill...

Our mission is far from complete.'

It urged leaders of the ABA's different sections to cultivate ethnic minority leadership and recommended that future ABA leaders 'educate themselves about issues of racial and ethnic diversity in the profession'.

The Law Society's most recent annual statistical report found that in 2002 8.1% of solicitors on the Roll were from ethnic minorities, in rough proportion to the population as a whole.

Yvonne Brown, chairwoman of the Society for Black Lawyers in England and Wales, said: 'The Law Society's Council is not at all representative of all members of the solicitors' profession, and a lot more needs to be done to make it more inclusive and to encourage ethnic minority solicitors to want to participate.'

Jeremy Fleming