Lawyers letting go of expensive leases

According to one company, lawyers are wanting out of their car leases more frequently than they were just two years ago.

LeaseTrader.com says lawyers who utilize their service are second in the number of vehicle leases up for trade than other professions. In 2008, 26 percent of lawyers got out of their expensive car leases; in 2010, the number jumped to 51 percent.

To be included in the report, a driver had to have a car valued at $40,000 or more in the LeaseTrader.com marketplace to escape the lease contract. The website allows people to take over leases or get out of their current lease.

Who’s trying to get out of their expensive leases most often? Doctors. Of the five professions listed, insurance brokers are doing the best – only 17 percent of people in that industry want out of their leases.

What I find most interesting about this snippet of data is that women are wanting out of their leases less frequently than men. Sixty-five percent of attorneys who wanted to give up their BMW or Mercedes leases were men; only 35 percent were women. Across the board in all the professions listed, women were far less likely to want out of their lease. The exception is Realtors, where it’s nearly a 50/50 split between males and females.

Why could this be? LeaseTrader.com hypothesizes it’s because women in general aren’t feeling the pain as much as men seem to be in this current economic climate. A possibility, but I’d offer a guess that it has to do with the number of female attorneys who would be able to afford a lease of $40,000 or more. The number of female partners is low. I glanced at the websites of two Indianapolis-based firms with locations around the state, country, and/or world. Less than 20 percent of partners are women.

Women are also more likely than men to work reduced hours or part time, making them less able to afford a higher-priced lease. Perhaps it’s just that women are more likely to buy their expensive car instead of leasing it.