Bias driving out minority female lawyers, study finds
By Audrey McAvoy
Associated Press
An American Indian attorney is asked where she keeps her tomahawk. White male partners look past a black lawyer, assuming she is clerical staff. An Asian attorney is called a "dragon lady."
A new study by the American Bar Association says such demeaning experiences, along with more subtle forms of discrimination, are prompting growing numbers of minority women to abandon the nation's biggest law firms.
"We're not even talking about trying to get up through a glass ceiling; we're trying to stay above ground," said Paulette Brown, co-chair of the group that produced the study released during the bar association's annual convention in Hawai'i this past week.
The report, titled "Visible Invisibility: Women of Color in Law Firms," comes at a time when the rising prominence of powerful minority women — think of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or Labor Secretary Elaine Chao — would lead one to imagine discrimination is on the decline.
Instead, the study says law firms exclude minority women from golf outings, after-hours drinks and other attorney networking events. Partners neglect the women of color they are supposed to help mentor.
In some cases, partners and senior lawyers disregard minority women attorneys less due to outright bigotry and more because they have less in common with the women and thus don't connect well with them. Even so, their attitudes have real consequences.
For example, the study shows firms routinely hand minority women inferior assignments — like reviewing documents or writing briefs — that provide little opportunity for meeting clients. This means women of color aren't able to cultivate business relationships and develop the "billable hours" that are the basis of career advancement within a firm.
Some of the statistics from the study:
Brown said such discrimination largely goes unchecked at law firms, forcing women to quit if they want to avoid it.
The study cited 2005 data from the National Association of Law Placement showing 81 percent of minority female associates left their jobs within five years of being hired. That figure was up from the late 1990s when it stood at 75 percent.
Elaine Johnson James, an African-American and a partner at the firm Edwards, Angell, Palmer and Dodge, said she's seen defections around her.
She recently called classmates from her Harvard Law School class of 1982 in an effort to find black law partners to speak at an alumni panel. Of the 50 or so black women in her class and classes above and below hers, James said she found only one other besides herself still working at a firm.
"Harvard, now — you've got to figure if anybody's going to stick, it would be us," James said. "It's amazing that we have left the private practice of law in droves."
Michael Greco, the bar association president, said managing partners at law firms — mostly white men — need to learn what is happening in their midst and dedicate themselves to reform.
"This is intolerable," Greco said at a news conference during the bar association's convention. "It stings the conscience of our profession."
Iris Jones, a lawyer with Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld, one of the nation's biggest law firms, said firms will begin to change only when U.S. companies withdraw their business from those that maintain the status quo.
"You have hugely successful law firms who have been incredibly profitable for many, many years — continue to be incredible profitable — and you're going to tell them that they should make changes? Why? There's no reason to," Jones said, "But when corporate America speaks and the voice says yes, change is expected, and without the change there will be consequences to our relationship, then you see action taking place."
She said some companies have started taking a stance, including Wal-Mart, which last year told its top law firms to include minorities among attorneys responsible for its account.
The bar association report recommends that firms adopt the retention, development and success of women of color as an issue. It also recommends that firms fully incorporate minority women attorneys into their professional and social fabrics.
The ABA, with the help of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, sent questionnaires to some 1,300 attorneys for the study and received responses from 72 percent, or 920.
