Related Posts
Bowl Leader
For those into LP, which pools do you use?
RSM PCS - Boston vs NYC office culture?
Anyone wanna come over? Brooklyn
Bowl Leader
Additional Posts in Law
Rising Star
Is PPP just a function of leverage?
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
Rising Star
Yes. I’ve noticed changes. This isn’t something that’s going to be solved in a year though. It will likely take several years to see appreciable change, especially in terms of diversity of the legal profession. In an effort to increase diversity, my firm will be conducting interviews at Howard University School of Law. I’m in a mid-size market that tends to pull from the two local law schools (neither of which are particularly diverse) so this is a big step. The firm has also been hosting many CLEs and seminars to facilitate difficult conversations. We have an awesome new D&I Chief and I think he’s really going to make a difference.
Rising Star
To the non equity partner who laughed at this: super classy 🙄 Way too many assholes on this app
My firm is actually walking the walk as far as supporting racial justice is concerned. So, i donot have any qualm with what the firm is doing — except when senior partners talk about it, you can see that the firm sees an opportunity to raise its profile and attract attorneys with big book of business.
Also, we should never make racial justice about black lawyers and how they may or may not be treated. At the end of the day, black lawyers live the privileged life compared to our brothers and sisters. We can do better but many others have a lot worse than us.
What is troubling is the actual racial justice, or lack thereof, in the streets, whuch still affects the general black population. I don’t see anything changing — not just yet. So, the struggle will continue!
Power to the people ✊🏾
Chief
Firms need to hire POC aggressively out of law school and as juniors (and at all levels really) and then (unlike 99% of law firms) actively mentor them and foster their growth for their entire careers, instead of feeling smug about a job well done and then being resigned when the POC leave after they’ve made no effort to save them from slipping through the cracks/getting frozen out from their practice groups because they don’t look like young Timmy who looks and acts just like the white EPs (because guess what, they have a very similar cultural background) and they go to the same ski resort on weekends and they keep sending work to and including on pitches and taking to client dinners while Jamal gets excluded for no real reason.
I don’t have a lot of hope. There is now not a single person I work for that is not white. They are all nice enough and I make it work, but it sucks. I can think of one person in the associate class in my practice group who looks like me. (Large firm and practice group.) It is incredibly isolating, and covid does not help. Neither do micro aggressions like people consistently not even bothering to try and say my name right or constantly mixing me up with the only other person of my race. And I am the exception of a successful POC that has stuck it out in biglaw relatively long, in large part because I did have some great POC mentors earlier on (and because I’m a workaholic with no life).
Counsel1 - I wholeheartedly can relate to this experience. Exclusion doesn't take the form of some dramatic statement or specific incident. It is literally death by a thousand cuts. I think we all enter this endeavor with our eyes wide open and hopeful that we will be valued members of this "prestigious" biglaw game. We all want to succeed and be respected in this industry that we have worked so hard to crack into. However, once the speeches end and the rubber hits the road, these firms literally provide zero support to the minorities that they so proudly parade around as examples of their "progressive" efforts. It is indeed a lonely place and one that the average person will flee as soon as possible.
Wow. I don’t even know what to say to that previous response.
But OP what I have seen is more CEOs and VPs at Fortune 500 and 1000 as minorities or people of color. I haven’t seen it at law firms yet
In my experience law firms are realllllly slow to change. I think it’ll be another 1-2 years before things really get implemented and executed (not just lip service) at law firms when it comes to diversity and racial equality.
My firm of around 30 lawyers has like the first and (as far as I know) only black partner in the area. We have also hired black, Asian, and Middle Eastern associates some of whom also became partners in the past but have also had problems with retention and recruitment, especially when much larger law firms offer these minority associates salaries we cannot afford after we’ve trained them. Not too many minorities are beating down the doors of a firm that primarily does civil insurance defense. That area may not be as appealing as other areas such as criminal defense and plaintiffs work may be. However, other causes may be present as well that I’m not aware of.
my firm doesn’t even pretend to have diversity efforts of any kind lol
yeah i’m a cis white gay woman and i am our diversity hire so.......
Nope. How many people who posted those black squares on their social media pages have actually taken measurable action? Close to zero, at least within my friend circle. Everyone wants the attention but no one wants the responsibility.
All the lectures, all the paint in the end zones, all the black squares on Instagram... it is virtue signaling and accomplishes no real change.
There can’t be any real change. There aren’t any black attorneys with the pedigree a national firm will consider who are stuck at some lowly insurance defense firm and who cannot get into big law if they want. Big law firms would kill to have a black lawyer who went to Harvard or Stanford law. This was true at my firm 20 years ago. All firms can do is poach them from another big law firm, which to be honest, does nothing for racial equity.
Chief
Aa4 I have thought the same way you have for awhile. I started out as a lowly ID lawyer and branched out to a bigger firm working with most of the elite firms on massive litigations all over the country. In terms of litigation core skills, I’m light years ahead in many ways because of my background, especially when it comes to taking and defending depositions. Not even kidding, I remember having partners at big firms being shocked seeing me ask questions at deps and then following up with me and asking if I could step into the lead role on some of the deps that they were planning to take. They were amazed at the things I picked up on in the records and how I could rope a dope a witness. One area where I initially felt I was behind was the constant wordsmithing, research and letter/writing posturing. The big law attorneys were just much much better at that.
I think there are roles for all of us in litigation. You need diverse skill sets and firms should look past the pedigree in hiring.
What should firms do? Implement quotas?
Chief
I’m not an expert but as a longtime member of management in multiple large firms I think there’s a lot they can do. Obviously part of the equation is resources, but in any Amlaw 200 firm there’s no resource shortage. Having an empowered D&I officer is an important start. That ensures consistent focus on the issue. Focused recruiting at all levels. Active and consistent mentoring and support. Participation in the diversity hiring initiatives that exist in many cities. Aggressive recruiting of Black (and other non-white) lateral partners and intensive support of their practices to help them thrive. The latter may mean overpaying for talent and focusing business development effort and support on these people to an extent greater than may be available to their peers, both of which can have their own complications. But until a firm has a critical mass of Black partners and other POC in leadership positions, it will remain very difficult to attract, retain, and develop Non-white associates. Making all of this work demands a Firmwide commitment and a ton of work, and even in the best of circumstances is a years long process. But it has to happen.
My firm established a scholarship at one of the regional law schools for BIPOC students. Doesn’t begin to solve the issue but I’m glad I work somewhere that is trying.
Chief
Pretty interesting article that’s apropos of our discussion yesterday.
https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2021/02/09/judge-sheds-light-on-why-some-black-associates-are-leaving-big-law/?kw=Judge%20Sheds%20Light%20on%20Why%20Some%20Black%20Associates%20Are%20Leaving%20Big%20Law&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=newsroomupdate&utm_content=20210218&utm_term=tal
Chief
One thing I heard up the chain at my last firm was despite initiatives and outreach (and they did a bunch of things and always hired at least half a summer associate class of minority students in my office) there was simply a lack of diversity applicants or a lack of diverse lawyers who actually wanted to stay at the firm for more than a couple years. I have no love lost for this firm but they actually did try hard on the diversity aspect. But it just didn’t ever seem to work. I don’t really know why.
Rising Star
Are there also diverse lawyers at the top? You’re not going to retain young, diverse lawyers if they don’t see people who look like them in partner positions. I’m not a POC but I am a woman and I’ve left firms or declined interviews at firms where I didn’t see enough women in partners positions. I assume it works the same way in this context.
I'll post this comment, and then won't be commenting further, as (a) I respect that people have different views; (b) I don't think it's productive to argue; but (c) it's worth noting that many people disagree with the contemporary left-wing narrative, and
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2019-4-12-the-labor-department-thinks-it-can-fix-the-lack-of-racial-diversity-at-major-law-firms
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-6-23-competitors-for-the-race-hypocrisy-prize-high-end-lawyers
https://www.city-journal.org/exposing-diversity-mandates
https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/exclusive-quinn-staff-outraged-white-partners-email-black-partner <--- See the comments under this post.
To give you a flavour of the the articles, here's a quote from the third one:
"In the US, 20% of new white lawyers at large firms have law school GPAs of 3.75+ , compared to only 2% of new black lawyers. The liberal partners, the strongest advocates for “diversity,” rarely practice what they preach, instead funnelling the results of diversity hiring whenever possible to someone else’s case. In private conversations, they acknowledge the diversity sham but shrug their shoulders: “What choice do we have?” Aware that they are not on the partnership track, black lawyers leave their big-firm employers at two to three times the rate of their white peers. By the time partner decisions roll around, few blacks remain in the pipeline to promote. A tax partner from another New York firm observed the same winnowing down along the partnership track. “Most large firms, including mine, are eager to diversify, and that is often reflected in hiring decisions at the entry level,” he told me. “But when they get to promoting people to partner, the merit system takes over. If people are hired for reasons other than their ability, they are not going to be able to compete in the race for partnership.”"
I also recommend the following authors:
Thomas Sowell
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Coleman Hughes
Glenn Loury
Jason Reilly
John McWhorter
Shelby Steele
Thomas Chatterton Williams
Walter Williams
Wilfred Reilly
Douglas Murray
Heather MacDonald
Chief
^well I guess that part I can’t really dispute, can I? Maybe they will ultimately engage if meaningful debate is started.