The Dark Side of the Recession
For years law firms have been actively trying to bump up their diversity credentials for a number of reasons, to draw in clients with minority executives (because we all know minorities are racist, just like white people), avoid negative publicity, and to attract top legal talent (Ivy League schools are extremely liberal).
But, it seems that the recession is hittign diversity initiatives particularly hard. From the ABA Presidential Diversity Initiative Report:
While law firms have increasingly come to recognize that diverse corporate clients and international markets often require lawyer diversity, the recession is drying up monies for diversity initiatives and creating downsizing and cutbacks that may disproportionately and negatively affect lawyer diversity—thereby undoing the gains of past decades.
One of the purported goals of diversity is to fight stereotypes. It’s pretty hard to keep a prejudice when you’re working in close quarters with someone. You’ll see the good work they do and find it hard to maintain your prejudice when confronted with contrary evidence.
So, while diversity initiatives may be useful in getting minority attorneys into firms to begin with, retention shouldn’t be much of a factor. But the ABA Presidential Diversity Initiative thinks otherwise. Given that no law firm wants to expose itself to an easy discrimination suit, they should be thinking twice before laying off a disproportionately large number of minorities. If anything, we’d expect to see firms hanging on to minorities more.
Why are they more likely to get laid off? The answer is diversity.
Whaaat? …Let me explain.
Diversity is what gets many minorities their jobs in the first place, not merits. Firms hire minority attorneys with poorer credentials than they would consider from a straight, white male candidate. If all minority candidates were hired on their merits alone, then they wouldn’t need diversity initiatives. These initiatives exist only because they can’t get hired on their merits.
The same thing basically happens with law school admissions as well. Law schools mostly just look at GPAs and LSAT scores when admitting students; two numbers that indicate absolutely nothing about the race of the applicant. But, law schools know that looking only at test grades will result in too few minorities getting accepted, so they lower the bar until their diversity quota is filled. The process is repeated in law firm hiring.
(I’m not arguing that minority students are inherently less intelligent. Most of the reason their test scores are lower is because they come from poorer families and have less educated parents. But, the solution to that is to be found in early education, not law school admissions.)
Enter the recession. Law firms are reducing their work forces and even students with good grades from top schools are being given the axe. You can bet that if you’re laying off Ivy League grads, you have no place in your office for a substandard attorney hired through a diversity initiative.
Disproportional minority lay offs should concern us, but not because it hurts law firm diversity. We should be concerned because it shows that minority attorneys hired through diversity initiatives, who have had a chance to work with law firm partners and prove them selves capable are still coming up short. Obviously diversity hiring doesn’t do squat but put sub-par attorneys in jobs they have no business being in.
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I hope they will retain me. I am a non-US citizen from Ghana with an LLM. I fear I will have to return to my country if I do not have job, so I hope my Aunt Ooona is not going to think I am going to stay.
Wow…I must be working for a law firm on Mars then, because all of the so-called “minority” attorneys that work at my firm (a national firm) have credentials equal to or better than the credentials of the white male attorneys at my firm (including the firm’s chairman).
Like many people who believe the nonsense above, you’re clearly in the camp that believes that as long as there is a single white male attorney with paper credentials supposedly better than those of a minority attorney, the minority attorney is “sub-par.” Nevermind that said minority attorney may have paper and other credentials better than the majority of attorneys at his or her firm, white or otherwise. All that matters is that said attorney’s paper credentials are not “better” than the best white man’s paper credentials. What exactly is the credential cutoff for attorneys deemed “qualified” to work at a law firm? If white boys don’t meet that cutoff, are they subpar too? If so, why do they get hired? There certainly are a bunch at my firm whose paper credentials don’t even come close to those of minority attorneys here.
Let’s be real about this…diversity initiatives are in place for two reasons (1) because clients are demanding that law firms have a diverse attorney corps (2) because without diversity initiatives, recruiters would tend to gravitate towards people with whom they feel most comfortable i.e. white people. It’s the same reason why the NFL forces teams to interview minority coaches. And like in the NFL, I have yet run across a single minority candidate interviewing for a job here who wasn’t as qualified, if not more so, than any white candidate that comes through.
Here’s another thought: Why would firms risk the possibility of a malpractice suit by using unqualified attorneys to work on client matters? Ain’t that much diversity in the world for a firm to put its good name at risk and its clients in jeopardy.
“I have yet run across a single minority candidate interviewing for a job here who wasn’t as qualified, if not more so, than any white candidate that comes through.”
Are you seriously saying that no white applicant has been more qualified than a minority applicant? I bet you also think Latina judges, more often than not, reach better decisions than white judges.
If minority applicants are as qualified as white applicants, then you don’t need diversity initiatives. Law is a business, and racism is inefficient. If minority attorneys aren’t getting hired by racist firms, a non racist firm will be able to get top talent at a cheaper cost, the reduced cost will allow them to cut billing rates to clients and steal clients from other firms, or increase profits, and steal partners from other firms. Racist firms will be weeded out.