Why More than 75% of Minority Female Lawyers Leave Law Firms Within 5 Years

J.D.
Jul 22, 2009 9:18 AM CST

In order to verify something as a “stereotype” we’re going to need stats.

For example, what percentage of Latina attorneys can, in fact, speak Spanish? If the number is greater than 50%, people are not stereotyping—they’re basing their conclusions on statistics.

Now if the percentage of Latina attorneys who speak Spanish is less than 10%, then perhaps their coworkers are not basing their assumptions on reality.

Unfortunately, the liberal media and the ABA are overly eager to call people racist without having all the facts.

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tom
Jul 22, 2009 9:23 AM CST

MOST lawyers leave the field of law completely within 5 years or so. THat is because they finally come to realize that the field of law is so overcrowded that in general the only people who can stay in it are those that completely sacrifice their entire lives to stay in the profession. And those who DO stay in law either rise to the top (a small percentage) or become permenantly low wage earners, starving solos, etc.

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Monkey C
Jul 22, 2009 9:56 AM CST

Like Ms. Cassens Weiss’s other pieces, this one is simply a press release repackaged for the web without any significant critical inquiry.  Moreover, the source of the report being the ABA itself is an automatic conflict of interest.  Citing to the Sun-Times doesn’t eliminate the inherent bias of this reporting.

That said, the report sounds anecdotal and non-serious.  I suspect a small sample size and poor survey design combined to lead to the predetermined conclusion.  Nothing here advances the discussion or aids in the solution to an otherwise important issue.

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Regina Mullen
Jul 22, 2009 10:09 AM CST

Big Law is not a good fit for MOST people, because it requires skills that care not taught in law school which are not “pick up-able” in other contexts. The problem isn’t that minority women leave big law,—the problem is that many law firms are enveloped in a dysfunctional, isolationist hierarchical system in which only certain personality-types can thrive.

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, as have many others. There are many law “geeks” out there, not in academia, who want to work on this issue. The underlying issue.

To get to teh udnerlying issue, I would love to hold a “World Cafe” style discussion at the ABA that takes lawyers through a “5 Whys” exercise. It’s a Japanese practice designed to get to the root of problems,—rather than thinking it’s over by publishing statistics.

In conducting about “25 whys” in my own practice over the last 20 years, I determined that my highest use was to form a legal services company, Dialexica, which is devoted to porting the best practices of complexity theory and software development into the practice of law. I believe that when (what has come to be termed) “Agile” principles are translated for the practice of law, several things happen.

First, lawyers are able to fully realize their potential, because the environment supports that evolution. Big law can be big law without the social dysfunction that drives many people away (not just minority lawyers).

Second, the practice of law itself needs to respond to the needs of clients using tried and true iterative processes. By including clients in the process, rather than viewing them as objects uponwhich work is done, we can help them create better solution, rather than imposing our views upon them. lawyers have, in actuality, a very small toolbox. We want to not only increase the size of the toolbox, but make sure that every tool provides teh best possible value.

Third, lawyers are NOT project managers just because we learn how to use MS Project. We’re not taught project managers, and to be blunt, many of us lack the ability to be good project maangers. We need to learn how to let go of tasks we’re not equipped to perform adn to hire appropriately so that the team as a whole functions at near optimum. Many, if not most, high tech companies are embracing some version of Agile, which means that not everyone HAS to be a superstar coder. I’d like to see law firms and lawyers embrace it as well, without, as we have done, stigmatizing those who practice law differently.

Finally, the best law schools should consider phasing out the dependence upon the Socratic method and bring people on who can teach Agile methodologies. Whereas the Socratic method depends upon the brilliance of the professor, teaching lawyers to be Agile depends upon the brilliance of the students.

The Agile Lawyer Association is the “open source” version of my company, and I encourage interested anyone interested to get in touch, participate and help us grow the practice of law into the 21st Century!

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MM
Jul 22, 2009 10:46 AM CST

“Women of color have a greater sense of “outsider status” than other groups, according to the Sun-Times summary of the report. They reported more racial and gender stereotyping, and more feelings of sexism than white women.”

Well, could that be because law firms trumpet to the whole world “AS A MINORITY FEMALE, YOU ARE DIFFERENT, AND WE WANT TO HIRE YOU BECAUSE OF THAT!!” 

Could it be the “Minority Task Force” or “Women’s Task Force” that so many law firms put in place?

Could it be because the law firms trot out minority women for the “beauty contests” so necessary for winning business from big corporations who only give business to firms with the proper minority mix?

Naw, couldn’t be any of that….

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NativeNewYorker
Jul 22, 2009 11:01 AM CST

Are any of you naysayers, critics, and self-righteous conservs, minority women?  Try walking in my heels for about 5 years at a law office—after you have risen above all the other negative stereotypes in the general publc—and you’ll know what it feels like.  And if you are smart, you learn to develop a real thick skin, become extremely well versed at responding to stupid comments and/or learn to do yoga/akido to deal with the stress.  Then we can talk.

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mythago
Jul 22, 2009 12:05 PM CST

It’s almost funny to see people tying themselves in knots here to deny that there could ever, ever be racism or sexism or any other kind of prejudice at law firms. And if there is, it’s clearly correct and deserved, and never existed before anybody pointed it out.

I hope these commenters do a better job of making a persuasive arguments in their briefs and memos.

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angelesq
Jul 22, 2009 12:16 PM CST

Wow, a story about stereotyping has led to a bunch of ...stereotyping! I will address them one by one:
1. “For example, what percentage of Latina attorneys can, in fact, speak Spanish? If the number is greater than 50%, people are not stereotyping—they’re basing their conclusions on statistics.”
This is the epitome of a stereotype. Because there may be many people with a certain background who have certain attributes does not mean you have a pass to assume that everyone possess that attribute. Would it be clearer to you if we changed the assumption? Statistically, most players in the NBA are black. Does that mean that it is OK to conclude that most tall black men excel in basketball? Similarly, you can’t assume that someone can speak a language just because their surname indicates a certain heritage because America is made up of people from all of the world, many of whom have families that have been here for decades. Is it assumed that people with italian surnames speak italian,  german names speak german or jewish names speak hebrew? Nope, this is just reserved for Latinos because the assumption is that they just arrived here.

2. When issues of race and gender are discussed, the minority is “whining”. (See sqanto’s post).
Discussion of experiences, both good and bad, are not whining. If someone asks you if you like a particular restaurant and you are critical of it, are you whining because you didn’t like the food. No, you are voicing your opinion. The fact is that minorities seem to have similar experiences even when they do not work for the same firms. This indicates a pattern or trend. The only way you can dismiss this is to assume that minority women have agreed to same the same things regardless of where they are or the experiences they have had. Unless you think that minorities are holding secret meetings and making sure that all the minorities who are surveyed say the same thing, you should probably view the survey results as being an accurate reflection of what people are feeling.

3. The existence of task forces at firms has created the problem.
Talk about blaming the victim! These task forces were established BECAUSE the firms recognized that a problem already existed. While the solution obviously hasn’t been very effective (or else we would see attrition numbers for minorities closer to the average for all BigLaw attorneys ), it is untenable to say that the solution created the problem.

4. “Or maybe it is because they are not willing to work till midnight when the job demands it.”
A stereotype too stupid to even answer…

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J.D.
Jul 22, 2009 12:38 PM CST

Look, if 95% of French-Americans speak French, I don’t think it’s too much of a prob if I assume there’s a high likelihood of my French-American co-worker speaking French.

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Larry
Jul 22, 2009 1:05 PM CST

I don’t give a damn what color skin you are.  It’s 2009.  Either give me 2,400 in billables or go work at McDonalds. 

Someone people just can’t take the hustle and bustle of Big Law so they quit.  Why turn the fact the 75% of minority females are quiters into a race issue?

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Guano
Jul 22, 2009 2:13 PM CST

Why the heck are Asians included?  Asia runs all the way from Indonesia to Isreal. I think people should be more specific.

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A.M.
Jul 23, 2009 1:06 AM CST

My older sister has experienced similar unfair handling and unwarranted criticism.  She’s never complained about discrimination in any context in all the time i have know her. She is an incredibly hard worker and never shirks or turns down work and is favored by her clients.  Yet, despite sacrificing so much of herself, she is still treated inequitably by her superiors. 

It is outrageous and backwards that such mindsets still exists at firms doing high profile work in major US cities.

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P.M.
Jul 23, 2009 12:36 PM CST

I don’t give a damn what color skin you are.  It’s 2009.  Either give me 2,400 in billables or go work at McDonalds. 

“Someone people just can’t take the hustle and bustle of Big Law so they quit.  Why turn the fact the 75% of minority females are quiters into a race issue?”

If only 50% of associates overall are “quiters,” then one has to ask why minority females quit half again as much, without making the assumption that half again as many minority women don’t or won’t work the number of billable hours their respective firms expect.

Otherwise, I smell stereotyping.

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Esq
Jul 23, 2009 2:25 PM CST

Big law is a frat house for the good old white boys, plain and simple.  It is an environment where you’re the first person of color that many of these attorneys have dealt with other than their nanny or maid.  They all assume that you were only hired as a diversity charity case as no person of color could ever be as qualified, if not more qualified as a white person, and are shocked that minorities can even speak or write english.

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Ronald S. Jordan
Jul 24, 2009 4:15 AM CST

The facts are clear, the ABA spent over a quarter of a million dollars on a study concerning the facts of diverse women attorneys leaving the profession, this is not new news. In fact this is “old news.” Reporting the outcome is fine, but what are the solutions to remedy the problem? Firms are profit centers for the law firm partners and those that want to get to that status. Law firms do not want to change the status quo, “it aint broke so why fix it” mentality. You all can pooh-pooh, about the problem and in house counsel can force firms to make changes, but law firms have not been financially hurt by the exodus of women of color. The remedy, is to disengage those firms that do not have the adequate intelligence to remedy the issue. This is not hard, except that law fiirms don’t like change, so they won’t change.

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Kiringer
Jul 24, 2009 6:07 AM CST

Well, I can see one obvious flaw in this study - did anyone bother asking white men if they feel like outsiders in their law firms? Or if they were treated unfairly or inappropriately?

The article states: “Women of color have a greater sense of “outsider status” than other groups, according to the Sun-Times summary of the report. They reported more racial and gender stereotyping, and more feelings of sexism than white women.”

What were the groups that were considered in this study? Did it include white men? Or do people assume that white men are always happy because they have it so easy (another stereotype)?

I have seen white men suffer through a lot worse behavior than what was described in this article. So what if someone assumes that you speak another language because you belong to a certain ethnicity, or being called the same name as many others in your particular ethnic/racial group? Try partners publicly humiliating men - saying they don’t have the balls to be a good lawyer or that their penises are so small that they could never satisfy any woman just because these men disagree with something? Try being shoved in a corridor or punched (all in the name of roughhousing) or being the victim of pranks and most of the office (including women and minorities) laughing at you? And being ridiculed just because you don’t care to go to a strip club or because you wore a tie that they found to be amusing? The Wall Street law firms were the worst - competition, aggression, humiliation, oneupmanship and crudeness were all so common and the long hours were unbearable. I have actually seen women and minorities treated with more respect than white men probably because most believe that white men are less likely to complain about these behaviors. I have also seen women and minorities at the top engaging in these same aggressive behaviors.

I agree that many law firms should change but this change should come in the form of a more respectable and pleasant workplace for all - not just for women and minorities.

Most people leave these law firms after a while. I did. It’s better to seek opportunities elsewhere than to try and change a particular workplace environment. Lawsuits drag on and they may not result in any change in the long run. Most of them are settled without the perpetrator admitting to any wrongdoing. It’s better to just stick it out for a while, place the big lawfirm’s name on your resume and move on with your life.

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Donald the Emperor
Jul 24, 2009 7:49 AM CST

When it comes to billable hours and results for clients, everyone steps off the diversity train.  Skin color and gender will not give you bonus points on your appellate brief, or your multimillion dollar transnational sales contract. 

This is the cruel joke of the Race Industry.  Skin color can get you into “great” ivy league universities, where you can learn about how evil America is, and it can get you into BigLaw, where you get about 2 years of a good wage for being a statistic, but it cannot guarantee a great contract or brief.

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Discriminator
Jul 24, 2009 9:31 AM CST

MM @ #10 & Larry @ #20…couldn’t agree more and my thoughts exactly…either run with the Big Dogs or stay on the porch (and stop yapping).  And, frankly, NativeNewYorker @ #12 and likeminded individuals who require others to walk a mile in their shoes to comment, neither I nor do any other lawyers/law firms/employers owe you a warm fuzzy or a resume to justify our respective responses.  My experience is that this “greater sense of ‘outside status’” is self-imposed.  That said, I’ll be the first to admit discriminating against ANYONE (whether pink, blue, or of indeterminate gender identity) who wears those high heels with a big chip on their shoulder about whitey keeping them down.  BOOO-YAH.

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JME
Jul 24, 2009 10:18 AM CST

The best way to beat this is to hate everybody equally.  If they know that coming in, then every young associate has to try and prove IT is capable of being better than the other.  As for aikido or yoga, my pocket “peace” is in 40 S&W.

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Mr.s California
Jul 24, 2009 10:38 AM CST

All i know is that I felt like the “outsider” described here and, although the biggest firm in CA, my old firm was not considered “biglaw.”  One partner ignored me 100% of the time when he conversed with my white female peers.  He did not utter one word to me until I gave notice and he found out I was going to be a client….he said something about “jumping ship already.” 

It sucks, but its real.  Will it change? I have no idea.

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Ed
Jul 24, 2009 10:52 AM CST

I know this one guy who would not stop acting inappropriately at work.  He smelled soooooo bad from not bathing, gas, etc.  We all wanted him out.  Finally, this one guy told him he smelled, and he quit!!  I think if you smell really, really bad you should not go into the LAW!!

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Rath
Jul 24, 2009 10:55 AM CST

@37 John Galt - Do you have any reliable statistics to support your claim that minority law school students from tier 1 law schools are “subpar” in significantly greater percentages of their specific race population in such law schools than white law school students are for all white law school students in the same law schools?  Do you have any reliable statistics that Big Law firms hire such minority law school students in any greater percentages from minority law school applicants than they do for white law school students from all white law school applicants?  Please cite those sources because until you do, your assertions no meaning or value.

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Cynthia Lynn Barnes
Jul 24, 2009 11:00 AM CST

As a white female attorney, I wonder why the focus on minority females.  W omen in general still have a “tough row to hoe” in law firms.  I was in a class of close to 50/50 on gender in 1985 and still the profession is “biased” in favor of those who already meet its stringent behavioral expectations.  On the other hand, the practice of law is one that requires very tough skin and any person, any age, any color, any gender, that cannot quickly harden themselves to perceived slights and rabidly competitive class structures are, in the ethics of the profession, fair game for a tougher competitor.  Women, and perhaps minorities, often make the mistake of assuming that because they feel uncomfortable in a situation that the fault lies with the person not going out of the way to make them feel comfortable.  That is not how most white men operate, it is not how the WASP capitalistic culture operates, and is not how law operates.  Sorry the mountain won’t move but we do have a choice to start digging in.

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anonymous
Jul 24, 2009 11:44 AM CST

the fact that these stereotypes exist is terrible and it makes me want to pick up and leave here

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been there, seen that
Jul 24, 2009 11:53 AM CST

Having observed the workings of a few AMLAW 100 firms my view is that 2 factors play a key role in finding mentors and allies, which are key to succeeding in a firm (besides recognizing that the “service” of law requires a major time commitment to clients and senior attorneys): (1) the difference between your behavior and others’ expectations and (2) how comfortable you make others feel.  I think because of certain “stereotypes”/expectations, women, and especially minority women, have a much narrower line to walk to come across both as assertive and competent but not make others uncomfortable because your behavior does not comport with others’ expectations of how you will behave and therefore strikes a jarring note with them.  For example, I think if a woman is hard edged, aggressive and demanding that it will strike other attorneys as more abrasive than if a white male took the same stance, and a woman partner is more likely to be spoken to about that behavior than a male partner [not to mention that junior attorneys may be more “reluctant” to complain about a male partner than a female partner].  This difference between expectation and reality also affects how comfortable the senior partners feel around you.  In addition, if, as others note, you start looking behind every look and word for signs of disparate treatment, you will be uncomfortable and others will be ill at ease around you, which will prevent the bonding needed for law firm success.  That being said, every firm I’ve observed has an all male “poker” or “game” night to which female attorneys are not welcome.  Many of the members of those groups leave the firm to go in house, so these informal “exclusive” social groups have ramifications down the road.  In addition, although many AMLAW100 firms may have programs in which they seek out minority women, they also have certain hiring requirements so most hires still meet the top—% requirement [so poor grades as an indicator of success is probably not the difference between retention rates].  In addition, I’m always amused when a firm has a featured diversity program which then becomes a springboard for high level non diverse attorneys to attend minority counsel conferences (which many minority attorneys do not get to attend).  I also agree these firm programs can create a negative distinction for the diverse attorneys who participate [as can be seen from the attitudes from some of those commenting here]. 
That being said, as many have noted the law is a tough profession; you need to be impervious to criticism, work very hard without appreciation, need to constantly prove yourself, and get used to every word you say and write being questioned by your own team, your own client, and the other side.  No wonder so many [minority women or otherwise] lose heart and wander on to other jobs.

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