This determination is essential in order for us to generalize from the results of the survey to the universe of lawyers from which the sample was drawn. The determination of response bias is effected in this study by looking at the profile of non-respondents on five important demographic variables contained in the telephone questionnaire. The analysis performed shows that some variations were significant. The difference in the representation of retired lawyers was the most significant. However, since they are not really at issue in this study and skipped out of virtually the entire questionnaire, this difference is irelevant to our analysis.
Private practitioners are to a small extent underrepresented in the mail data.
The effect of this overrepresentation will be discussed below where relevant. Thus, with the minor exceptions to be discussed below, the data which results from the survey can be taken to be representative of the universe of lawyers from which the sample was drawn. The purpose of this analysis is to determine what, if any, response bias has been engendered by using mailed responses to an ABA survey on job satisfaction. The determination of response bias is effected in this study by telephoning a random sample of the nonresponders to the original mailed survey in order to determine if they varied from the responders on some important demographic variable. Job status, 2.