Law firms and minorities by the numbers
October 8th, 2004 by michaelI have race on the mind. My 2L summer position search is winding down. As I reflect on the process, some things stand out.
I am used to being the only black man (and sometimes black person) in the room. But the state of the legal profession is shocking to the conscience. As I write this post, I have decided to name names. Please understand, I am not singling out these firms. I believe this is an industry wide problem, but my point will be watered down if I don’t get specific.
Some Questions and Answers…
Q. Who has more black partners in their NY office? Weil Gotshal or Debevoise?
A. Weil has 3. Debevoise doesn’t have any.
Q. Firm-wide, does Gibson Dunn have more partners that are Native American or Black?
A. Firm-wide, Gibson Dunn has exactly one black partner and one Native American partner.
Q. When was Wachtell’s first ever black Partner elected to the partnership?
A. 2003
And some facts:
Wilmer Cutler’s DC office has more black partners than the Vault top 5 combined (Wachtell, Cravath, Sullivan, Skadden, and Davis Polk). So does Hogan & Hartson.
Clifford Chance has no black partners in NY.
Not only does Willkie Faar not have a black partner in NY, it doesn’t have a single minority partner in DC (i.e. no asians or hispanics or native-americans or blacks).
And Dewey Ballantine… They don’t have a black partner in NY and their pipeline is drying up. 4 of the 10 black associates left last year.
I’ll post some thoughts on this in a moment, but I needed to get those numbers out of my brain.
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October 8th, 2004 at 9:06 pm
are you surprised, pissed, frustrated, what? cause im certainly not surprised.
also, if you really want to “name names” then go for it, even though i can see even this post as being a risky precedent to have associated with your name. me, im the kind of guy who names names. my point is, do it with gusto, or not at all.
October 9th, 2004 at 12:25 am
The only time I saw a black associate *or* partner during my callback process was lunch with 2 black associates at a DC firm. I wasn’t sure, though, whether that was an artifact of limited minority-partner interview time being reserved for minority candidates. I guess not!
–Sarah