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The Partner Chase: An elite law firm’s inability to promote enough minority partners
City Journal ^ | Spring 2019 | Heather Mac Donald

Posted on 05/13/2019 7:16:52 AM PDT by reaganaut1

In December 2018, the New York law firm Paul, Weiss announced its latest class of partners. A scandal erupted: all 12 of the newly promoted lawyers were white, the photo accompanying the announcement revealed. The New York Times published a front-page hit job on the firm headlined: 12 WHITE FACES REFLECT BLIND SPOT IN BIG LAW.

...

So why are there not more black partners? The same reasons that there are not more black computer engineers or physicians: the academic skills gap and counterproductive racial preferences. Blacks are hired as summer law interns and first-year associates at rates well above their representation among law school graduates, according to research by UCLA law professor Richard Sander. But because blacks’ law school GPAs on average cluster at the bottom of their class (thanks as well to law school admissions preferences), they enter large firms (defined as having 100 or more lawyers) with academic qualifications a standard deviation below those of incoming white lawyers. Over a fifth of all new white lawyers at large firms have law school GPAs of 3.75 or higher, compared with 2 percent of new black lawyers. By contrast, 2 percent of new white lawyers in big firms have GPAs under 3.0, compared with 14 percent of black lawyers.

Despite the numerous support programs that corporate firms offer for “diverse” attorneys, this academic skills gap is infrequently overcome. Black lawyers at big firms report fewer assignments and less responsibility for major cases. Sander calls this under-assigning “benign neglect.” While most of the attorney quotes in the New York Times story represent a serious misreading of the work environment, the statement about white males getting better opportunities and client contacts is undoubtedly true. The reason for that disparity is not invidious discrimination

(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; US: New York
KEYWORDS: diversity; lawyers; nyc; preferences; quotas; racialpreferences; racism; workforce
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1 posted on 05/13/2019 7:16:53 AM PDT by reaganaut1
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To: reaganaut1

No client values “diversity” as a quality in a lawyer.

Trying to force political agendas on customers loses customers. AKA “get woke go broke”.


2 posted on 05/13/2019 7:19:33 AM PDT by thoughtomator (The Clinton Coup attempt was a worse attack on the USA than was 9/11)
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To: reaganaut1

No diverse society will ever become “color-blind”.
What the several cultures must learn is to be blind to color.


3 posted on 05/13/2019 7:24:12 AM PDT by Cletus.D.Yokel (Catastrophic, Anthropogenic Climate Alterations: The acronym explains the science.)
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To: reaganaut1
I noticed in college while studying complicated engineering subjects, advanced mathematics and even econometrics that there were not many black Americans in those classes.

A lot of Asians, whites and if there was a black person, they were from Nigeria.

4 posted on 05/13/2019 7:24:15 AM PDT by Bon mots
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To: reaganaut1

This just can’t be true. Colleges and universities are all about diversity. And focusing on advantages for minorities.

So how come this feel-goodism doesn’t transfer to the real working world?


5 posted on 05/13/2019 7:25:01 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd ( Import the third world and you'll become the third world.)
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To: reaganaut1

It seems liberals do not know the meaning of the word “meritocracy”


6 posted on 05/13/2019 7:26:17 AM PDT by JBW1949 (I'm really PC....PATRIOTICALLY CORRECT!!!!)
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To: reaganaut1

There are not enough Blacks to fill quotas in board rooms, public offices, police departments, college faculty, “STEM” jobs! They’re only 18% of the population! You just can’t do this! not possible!

Same with every other minority. Do the numbers.


7 posted on 05/13/2019 7:29:21 AM PDT by I want the USA back (*slam is a violent political movement that escapes scrutiny by hiding behind the facade of religion.)
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To: Responsibility2nd

“The reason for that disparity is not invidious discrimination but partners’ contact with the result of racial preferences.”

Reality always wins in the end - or the firm goes out of business.


8 posted on 05/13/2019 7:43:39 AM PDT by Cecily
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To: thoughtomator

Someone hiring a lawyer wants a person who is razor sharp and knows the ins and outs of the law intimately. I think the race or religion of the lawyer is quite secondary to a client who needs “the best”. And, just to fulfill the demands for “equality”, it would be suicidal for a law firm to hire people using race as a criterion.


9 posted on 05/13/2019 7:55:29 AM PDT by EinNYC
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To: reaganaut1

10 posted on 05/13/2019 7:58:04 AM PDT by montag813
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To: reaganaut1

Can we see a picture of the New York Times’ executive office? Don’t think they have many dark faces


11 posted on 05/13/2019 8:09:05 AM PDT by Cowboy Bob ("Other People's Money" = The life blood of Liberalism)
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To: reaganaut1
Headline writer's pulling in from the past....The Paper Chase (TV series)...
12 posted on 05/13/2019 8:20:01 AM PDT by GOPJ ("Elites reflexively exempt themselves from the ravages of their own policies." - nathanbedford)
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To: reaganaut1

Years ago I worked with a very hard-working black lady. She was a wonderful person and a single mother to a teenaged daughter.

She had been married but her husband left her when her daughter was still a baby. She didn’t take up with other men nor have other children; she went to work and worked hard to give her daughter a better life than she’d had, including a better education.

At that time her daughter was in high school and her ambition was to become a lawyer. More than once the mother confided in me her exasperation with how her daughter was being treated by her classmates. The daughter was constantly told she was “trying to be white” because she tried to do well in school and make good grades and because she wanted to go to college.

It made no more sense to her mother than it did to me. Getting an education and living a middle-class life had no relationship to race in either of our minds. I eventually left the job and the area and don’t know if her daughter achieved her goals or not.

I think that, unfortunately, the attitude that getting an education, speaking correct English, and living a middle-class life is “white.” Even kids who have the innate capability of becoming a top-notch lawyer are discouraged from developing their intellects and obtaining good educations.

Affirmative action practices don’t help, either.


13 posted on 05/13/2019 8:20:56 AM PDT by susannah59
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To: Bon mots
A lot of Asians, whites and if there was a black person, they were from Nigeria.

My daughter's high school had, among its black students, a young man originally from Nigeria but who grew up in the USA, whose parents were both doctors. He was not only intelligent, but highly competitive - and socially a "nerd" in every way its defined among young people. Hung out with the white and asian boys from the chess and computer clubs (ie. he had zero "American black identity" - IMHO to his great benefit).

Ivy Leagues were tripping over themselves to admit him. He got into all 5 he applied to.

14 posted on 05/13/2019 8:21:45 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: JBW1949

They do in the NBA


15 posted on 05/13/2019 8:30:40 AM PDT by JZelle
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To: Cletus.D.Yokel

“Oh, he’s black? To tell you the truth, I never noticed.”
-—George Costanza


16 posted on 05/13/2019 8:31:20 AM PDT by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: susannah59

Blacks should realize that voting is acting white.


17 posted on 05/13/2019 8:33:06 AM PDT by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: sparklite2

George Costanza, the ORIGINAL virtue signaler.


18 posted on 05/13/2019 8:37:26 AM PDT by Cletus.D.Yokel (Catastrophic, Anthropogenic Climate Alterations: The acronym explains the science.)
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To: reaganaut1
So why are there not more black partners? The same reasons that there are not more black computer engineers or physicians: the academic skills gap and counterproductive racial preferences.

It's the ambition gap. Most blacks, just frankly aren't that ambitious. Of course there are exceptions, but the "crab bucket mentality" saps ambition from a young age.

This is the issue no one dares to talk about.

19 posted on 05/13/2019 8:39:28 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: JBW1949

It seems liberals do not know the meaning of the word “meritocracy””””

They do know the meaning of that word.

Dems just refuse to recognize that it matters in every job in the world.

I don’t care if you re milking cows or running Microsoft & Amazon. IF you don’t know how to do the job & don’t work hard at it, you don’t belong there.


20 posted on 05/13/2019 8:48:20 AM PDT by ridesthemiles
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