A former staff attorney of Covington & Burling can proceed with her federal discrimination claim over the law firm’s policy of assigning work, based on a disparate impact theory.

However, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton found that Yolanda Young had waited too long to bring a similar claim that the firm’s refusal to promote her to an associate position also was discriminatory, reports the Blog of Legal Times.

Walton OK’d the work-assignment claim because it involves a recurring issue that is revisited at annual reviews each year, the law blog explains. Young argues that the firm’s policies have a disparate impact because, she alleges, the staff attorney group is disproportionately black.

Says Yolanda Young’s attorney:

“My client is pleased to be able to pursue the disparate impact claim because it is not every day that a court allows that kind of claim to move forward,” attorney Latif Doman, who is representing Young, tells the BLT. “As we move forward with discovery, it will be clear that African-American staff attorneys are put through a similar system as white associates but are not being judged in the same manner.”

Kamisha Menns, a black woman born in Jamaica, says in the complaint, filed in D.C. Superior Court on Wednesday, that Howrey violated the D.C. Human Rights Act by retaliating against her, creating a hostile work environment, and inflicting emotional distress, both intentionally and negligently. Menns has asked for $30 million.

According the complaint, Menns was heavily recruited by Howrey only to be subjected to discriminatory treatment once staffed in their Brussels office.

At some point after moving to Brussels, Menns says in her complaint, she began being removed from projects despite receiving compliments on her work from several partners. She says her workplace was shifted to a different floor from that of other lawyers. When she reached out to the office’s managing partner, Trevor Soames, the complaint alleges, Menns was told “that because she was an ‘impressive woman’ Ms. Menns made Howrey’s white employees feel uncomfortable.” The complaint alleges that Soames also told her that because she was the first black associate to work in the office, the office staff’s treatment of her might be influenced by the fact that “they had never before been forced to be in a ’subordinate position’ to a black person.”

The complaint goes on to allege that the situation only got worse when she reached out to firm leaders, including the Washington-based diversity committee and CEO Robert Ruyak. In a June 2, 2009, meeting, a day after Menns sent an e-mail to Ruyak and eight members of the diversity committee outlining the allegedly discriminatory treatment, Menns was fired.

A billboard displaying a picture of the executive and his mistress, YaVaughnie Wilkins, during happier times went up recently in Atlanta, New York and San Francisco.

Gawker broke the story:

The pair first come to light in a mysterious Times Square billboard we posted about on Tuesday. The billboards included the address of a romantic online photo album,CharlesPhillipsAndYaVaughnieWilkins.com, and a quote attributed to “C.E.P.:” “You are my soulmate forever!” Our readers quickly figured out that the man in the billboard was Oracle’s Charles Phillips, and we wondered if the co-president was emulating his attention-grubbing boss, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. But then came evidence of Phillips’ marriage to one Karen Phillips, who Charles Phillips called his wife in a 2006 interview and who appeared with him in the society pages recently. We wondered if Wilkins wasn’t out for revenge.

Ms. Wilkins also unveiled a website with post cards, photos–one of which is a man with painted toe nails and lingerie (might that be Mr. Phillips?)–and notes written on hotel stationary.  The website has since been removed, but Gawker was kind enough to produce their own photo gallery of some especially touching touchy kodak moments.

In February 2009, Phillips was appointed as a member to the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide President Barack Obama and his administration with advice and counsel regarding the economy.

This couldn’t get much worse for Mr. Phillips.  Let’s just hope his wife doesn’t take to his head with a golf club…

Breaking:  The billboard in Atlanta has been taken down.  Perhaps none of this happened at all.

From ATL:

An ATL reader alerted us that Raven Akram, an attorney at Sandberg Phoenix, moonlights as an NFL cheerleader for the St. Louis Rams. Sandberg Phoenix is a 65-attorney trial firm with “seriously unbelievable client service.” Akram joined the firm’s St. Louis office in 2008.

Over the relevant 15-year period, the study — conducted in conjunction with the Society of American Law Teachers, found that the total number of African-Americans and Mexican-Americans entering law school dropped from 4,142 in 1993 to 4,060 in 2008. Combined with the increase in overall law school capacity (from 43,520 to 46,500), that translated into a 7.5 percent and 11.7 percent decrease of African-American and Mexican-American first-year law students, respectively.

“It’s like imagining Carnegie Hall, which seats almost 3,000 people, filled to capacity but no Mexican-Americans or African-Americans allowed in,” says Conrad Johnson, the Columbia professor who oversees the clinic, regarding the additional spots created over the past 15 years. “For many African-American and Mexican-American students, law school is an elusive goal.”

How elusive? Between 2003 and 2008, 61 percent of African-American and 46 Mexican-American applicants were rejected by every law school to which they applied, according to Law School Admissions Council data reviewed by the clinic’s researchers. The “shut-out” rate for white applicants was 34 percent.

According to his campaign:

Mayor-Elect Kasim Reed was raised in the Cascade community. He was educated in Fulton County’s public schools where he graduated from Utoy Springs Elementary School and Westwood High School (now Westlake High School) and went to Howard University, where he received his undergraduate and law degrees.

Though Mayor-Elect Reed was the youngest Democratic State Senator, he had a well-established track record of legislative excellence. He was first elected to the Georgia General Assembly in 1998 as State Representative for District 52. He was re-elected in 2000, winning seventy-seven percent (77%) of all votes cast. In the House, Mayor-Elect Reed served two terms as a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Education Committee and Legislative and Congressional Reapportionment Committee.

Mayor-Elect Kasim Reed served as campaign manager for Mayor Shirley Franklin’s first and second campaigns. Following her election in November 2001, Mayor Franklin selected him to serve as one of two Co-Chairs for the Shirley Franklin Transition Team.

Mayor-Elect Reed’s civic leadership and service has been nationally recognized in publications such as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Ebony and Black Enterprise. He was selected as one of Georgia Trend magazine’s “40 under 40 Rising Stars” in 2001, as one of the Fulton County Daily Report ’s “Lawyers on the Rise” and as one of “10 Outstanding Atlantans” in Outstanding Atlanta. Mayor-Elect Reed is a member of the Leadership Georgia Class of 2000 and is a Board Member of the Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund.

Mayor-Elect Kasim Reed is a member of Cascade United Methodist Church, pastored by Reverend Marvin Moss.

A longtime assistant prosecutor has easily been elected Philadelphia’s first black district attorney.

Forty-two-year-old Seth Williams will be the city’s first new DA in nearly 20 years.

He will succeed longtime incumbent Lynne Abraham, who did not seek another term. She has served in the post since 1991.

In the May primary, Williams defeated four other Democrats to earn his party’s nomination. The little-known Untermeyer was unopposed.

According to his campaign:

Seth Williams grew up in a hard-working West Philadelphia neighborhood, the only child of Imelda Williams and the late Rufus O. Williams.

After graduating from Central High School in 1985, Seth attended Penn State University where he served as President of the Black Caucus and later as President of the Undergraduate Student Government, representing all 57,000 undergraduate students.

From Penn State, Seth was on to law school at Georgetown University, where he graduated with distinction as a Public Interest Law Scholar in 1992.

After graduation Seth’s dedication to public service brought him home to Philadelphia, where he joined the District Attorney’s Office.

In the ten years he served as an Assistant District Attorney, Seth was repeatedly promoted, including his appointment as the Assistant Chief of the Municipal Court, where he supervised the 30 newest prosecutors. He also created and led the Repeat Offenders Unit with the goal of reducing the high percentage of crimes committed by repeat offenders. His extensive trial experience includes 37 jury trials, more than 1,500 bench trials and more than 2,500 felony preliminary hearings.

In 2005, Seth challenged Lynn Abraham, Philadelphia’s longtime incumbent District Attorney, in the Democratic primary. While not victorious on Election Day, Seth won 46 percent of the vote and received endorsements from the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #5, the Transit Workers Union Local 234, District Council #47, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Tribune, thePhiladelphia Sunday Sun and the Westside Weekly.

From the Jackson Sun:

Godwin said his bipartisan background has shaped his appreciation of Tanner, saying that he admires the founding member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog coalition of congressional Democrats for often “trying to find a middle way.”

Godwin touted his knowledge of international issues. The statement announcing his interest in the 8th District seat says he once addressed aconference about the civil rights of Catholics in Northern Ireland and was an official state guest of the United Arab Emirates in 2007.

But don’t get any fancy ideas about his background:

“I’m not privileged. I’m not from a political background.” Godwin said. “… I have a knowledge and an understanding of the big domestic problems, especially the issues of education and health care that are challenging our country in big ways.”

From Employment Law 360 (Subscription Required):

In a concise order filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Judge Harold Baer asked the clerk to remove the case from the court’s docket, announcing that plaintiff Caroline Memnon and S&W had agreed to a dismissal of all claims.

Charges against Clifford Chance US LLP, the other named defendant in the suit, are also no longer pending.

While counsel—Seyfarth Shaw LLP, Proskauer Rose LLP and Doman Davis LLP represented S&W, Clifford Chance and Memnon respectively—remain mum, according to Law360, after the court rejected some of the law firms’ summary-judgment arguments, a settlement conference was scheduled for November 25th. Days after that conference and only three weeks before trial, Memnon voluntarily dismissed her lawsuit. Hmmm…wonder if she’ll be joining Colin Powell and Aaron Charney at 220 West 93.

Full disclosure:  Latif Doman is also representing OBABL founder, Yolanda Young, in her discrimination lawsuit against Covington & Burling LLP.  His firm has developed a niche practice of advising and representing attorneys on their rights with regard to employment at large law firms.

Advice & Counsel PLLC is excited to present the 2009 Diversity Roundtable Legal Practice Seminar Series, a program that gives back to the legal community by investing in our most precious resource, young lawyers and law students.  The seminar series, the company’s first, aims to partner experienced practitioners with extensive knowledge in specific areas of the law with young lawyers and law students interested in those areas.  The series is intended to fill the experience, practice area specific training, and mentoring void left between law school and legal practice due to current market conditions.  Beginning on Friday, November, 6, 2009, the firm will host a series of weekly seminars addressing the state of certain practice areas, basic skill development and advice on immediate training opportunities, and job search strategies specific to certain practice areas.  The practice areas that will be featured include tax/ERISA, corporate and securities, lobbying, labor & employment, litigation, and antitrust.

The series is only $10 a session.  If you’re interested, register here.  If you’re not yet convinced of the benefit, continue reading:

Ms. Scott is currently serving as Interim General Counsel of Golfsmith International Holdings, Inc. under a representation agreement with Advice & Counsel PLLC.  Advice & Counsel PLLC’s consulting services include serving as interim in-house counsel, auditing legal departments, performing independent investigations, and managing short-term and special projects, such as firm convergence programs, diversity programs, and law firm transitions.

The Root 100 is a newly minted honor intended to celebrate the leadership, service and excellence of African-American men and women whose passion, dedication and innovative work have set them apart. The Root 100 is the manifestation of a core component of The Root’s mission—to bring to light people and ideas who are quietly having an impact on our lives and our communities.

Interestingly, a quarter of those named to The Root 100 are lawyers, who are either politicians, law professors, pundits, nonprofit heads, media executives or members of Team Obama. See the breakdown below then in the comments section, tell us who you would add to this list and why.

Team Obama

Melody Barnes
Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council

Hill Harper
Actor, Obama campaigner and now a member of the Obama for America National Finance Committee
Cassandra Butts
Deputy White House Counsel, Obama Administration

Derek Douglas
Special Assistant to the President for Urban Affairs

Tony West
Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division

The Politicians

Cory A. Booker
Mayor of Newark

Artur Davis
Congressman from Alabama’s 7

Adrian Fenty
Youngest mayor of Washington, DC

Harold Ford, Jr.
Chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council

Kamala Harris
San Francisco District Attorney

Craig Watkins
District Attorney, Dallas County

Yelberton “Yebbie” Watkins
Chief of Staff to House Majority Whip, Rep. James Clyburn

The Non-Profiteers

Debo Adegbile
Director of Litigation, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund

Semhar Araia
Oxfam’s Horn of Africa Regional Policy Advisor, Founder, Diaspora African Women’s Network (DAWN)

Lateefah Simon
Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area

Maya Harris
VP, Peace and Social Justice Program, Ford Foundation

Richard Buery, Jr.
First black president and CEO of the Children’s Aid Society

The Professors

Kimberle Crenshaw
Professor at UCLA School of Law

James Forman Jr.
Professor of Law at Georgetown University

Angela J. Davis
Professor of Law, American University, Washington College of Law

The Media Executives

Matthew Johnson
Entertainment Lawyer, Partner, Ziffren Brittenham LLP

Alfred Liggins III
CEO Radio One

Deirdre Stanley
Executive VP and General Counsel of Thomson Reuters

Dean Garfield
President/CEO, Information Technology Industry Council

The Pundits

Carlos Watson
Founder and publisher, The Stimulist; MSNBC contributor

Elie Mystal
Editor, Above the Law

Whether you’re just beginning your legal career, looking to transition to government, or reposition yourself after a firm layoff, Ron is hoping to help you sort through this legal career maze.

Post general career questions in the comments section or feel free to send your resume and query directly to Ron at rjordan@diverseattorney.org.

From the MCCA article Debunking the Mystique of Top 20 Law Schools

“GPAs don’t practice law. People practice law,” notes Ron Jordan, founding principal of Carter-White & Shaw. “Their various experiences, along with their theoretical background, will determine what type of lawyer they will become. Going to Harvard is not going to guarantee that you’re going to be successful.”

From Law.com article Agents of Change

Ron Jordan, senior principal director at Carter-White & Shaw, says during a recent day he received calls from a San Francisco firm asking for two attorneys, a firm in Minnesota that needs three attorneys, as well as a New Jersey firm on the lookout for three.

“One year ago, I would have had to solicit those calls,” said Jordan, who says he used to cold call law firms to generate business.

From NLJ:

Five years ago this month, Roderick Palmore wrote “A Call to Action” — a pledge signed by the general counsel of some of the country’s largest corporations vowing to make diversity a major consideration in their selection of outside counsel.

Palmore, now the general counsel of General Mills Inc., wanted companies to put more business pressure on law firms to improve the diversity of their attorney ranks, where racial minorities long have been woefully underrepresented.

Diversity efforts across the profession mushroomed after the Call to Action was issued. Nearly every major law firm has created a diversity committee tasked with boosting minority and female representation. More scholarships for minority law students were established, affinity groups were formed and more so-called pipeline programs popped up to encourage minority students to pursue the law. Nary a week passed, it seemed, when a firm wasn’t unveiling a fresh diversity initiative or trumpeting an award received for its efforts.

Still, real progress in diversifying the profession has been painfully slow. Since 2004, the percentage of minority attorneys at U.S. law firms has crept up from 10 percent to just 12.6 percent in 2009, according to the National Association for Law Placement (NALP).

The Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD) is hoping to change that:

The  (LCLD), led by Palmore and Hunton & Williams managing partner Wally Martinez, brings together law firm managing partners and general counsel from major companies to hold legal leaders accountable for their minority numbers. The previous strategy, in which corporations and law firms tackled their diversity problems separately, didn’t yield the desired results, Palmore said.

“[Diversity programs] have been going on for a long time, and the results speak for themselves,” Palmore said. “They’ve been marginally successful, at best. That indicates a new approach is warranted.”

Prominent Civil Rights Lawyer, Raymond A. Brown, who represented the Black Panthers and Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, has died.  From the New York Times:

Mr. Brown, a tall, slender man blessed with the courtroom gifts of a strong voice, sweeping arm gestures and a prowling gait, developed his ardor for civil rights as an African-American soldier sent to Army bases in the South and seeing firsthand how shabbily and humiliatingly blacks were treated. He honed his reputation with Southern civil rights cases in the 1960s and later defended some of the black students — including his son — arrested for taking over a building at Columbia Universityin 1968.

But his talent for courtroom bravado, oratory and canny legal strategies was such that clients like New Jersey politicians, organized crime figures and union officials sought him out when issues far from civil rights were involved. He defended the mayor of Camden, N.J., Angelo Errichetti, in 1980 in one of the Abscam cases involving congressmen and other politicians accused of taking bribes in what had been a sting operation by federal authorities pretending to be wealthy Arab sheiks.

The danger is that the progress we have made on diversity will erode,” says Roderick “Rick” Palmore, general counsel of General Mills. Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith concurs: “Even before the onset of the recession, we were seeing a situation where progress was disappointing. It’s very important that we not slide backward.

MLJ offers a number of quotes from summer associates and midlevels attesting to the fact that “It’s a scary time…”  From MLJ:

Judging from our most recent Minority Experience Study, there’s definite cause for concern. This year we set out to measure the impact of the recession on midlevel associates of various racial groups. While all associates reported a falloff in work compared to last year, along with layoffs and benefit cuts at their firms, minority midlevels — particularly African Americans — seem to be feeling the economic crisis’s effects most acutely. Compared to those of their white colleagues, the workloads of black, Asian American, and Hispanic lawyers are lighter, and their billable hours are lower. Minority lawyers are also experiencing higher levels of anxiety about layoffs. That was true in our 2008 survey, but this year a greater percentage of associates in all ethnic groups said that the recession has affected them.

When Elie Mystal over at Above The Law first reported on MLJ’s survey, some commenters raged with the usual accusations that blacks from schools like Harvard and Stanford were merely affirmative action beneficiaries, who were unqualified to walk the halls of BigLaw in the first place.  One commenter wondered why blacks hadn’t built their own V100 firms:

When Jews discovered that their full potential wasn’t recognized and used, they formed their own law firms and completely outclassed their WASP competitors. If the black lawyers really are equally competent and really are discriminated against, why is there not a single black law firm in the V100?

Another commenter noted the problem that could ensue at the mention of watermelon:

Why would I want to build a “professional relationship” with someone who comes from a culture that is increasingly obsessed with branding me a racist by any means necessary? It’s not worth the risk, e.g., that making a positive comment about the watermelon served as part of a lunch meeting won’t get me written up. Race relations have turned into such a PC minefield that I’d rather just stay out of it altogether.

Now the conservative blog Occidental Observer is predicting a white revolt:

And if young White lawyers start heading in a pro-White direction, by the way, this could mean big problems for the system. By positioning, they are expected to be on the enemy side: They’ve been trained in law “schul,” as a friend likes to say, and see their elders hold up “civil rights” and Atticus Finch (while they, meanwhile, grew up with O.J.). Today, they’re being laid off by the hundreds and see affirmative action ridiculousness up close, so they wouldn’t seem to have as much to lose.

Say what you will about lawyers, but they are articulate, and they are good at making trouble. Now that the system needing dismantling is essentially anti-White, this could come in handy.

The New York Law Journal reports that a gang member convicted of murdering a 14 year old was granted a new trial because prosecutors repeatedly referred to him by his unfortunate nickname.  Hmmm…C-Murder take note:

Prosecutors’ repeated “gratuitous” references, “with a lot of arch emphasis and many facetious asides” to the nickname of a defendant — “Murder” — entitled the defendant to a new trial for attempted murder, a federal appeals court has ruled.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded in United States v. Farmer, 07-2729-cr, that Laval “Murder” Farmer had been denied due process because the prosecutors “invited prejudice by repeatedly emphasizing Farmer’s nickname in a manner designed to suggest that he was known by his associates as a murderer and that he acted in accordance with that propensity in carrying out the acts charged in the indictment.”

Prominent Civil Rights Lawyer, Raymond A. Brown, who represented the Black Panthers and Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, has died.  From the New York Times:

Mr. Brown, a tall, slender man blessed with the courtroom gifts of a strong voice, sweeping arm gestures and a prowling gait, developed his ardor for civil rights as an African-American soldier sent to Army bases in the South and seeing firsthand how shabbily and humiliatingly blacks were treated. He honed his reputation with Southern civil rights cases in the 1960s and later defended some of the black students — including his son — arrested for taking over a building at Columbia Universityin 1968.

But his talent for courtroom bravado, oratory and canny legal strategies was such that clients like New Jersey politicians, organized crime figures and union officials sought him out when issues far from civil rights were involved. He defended the mayor of Camden, N.J., Angelo Errichetti, in 1980 in one of the Abscam cases involving congressmen and other politicians accused of taking bribes in what had been a sting operation by federal authorities pretending to be wealthy Arab sheiks.

In a highly embarrassing mea culpa, Florida’s powerful trial lawyer lobby admitted Wednesday that it was behind an ugly race-baiting flier in a recent North Florida Senate election.

“Morally and politically, it was indefensible,” said Scott Carruthers, executive director of the Florida Justice Association, the trial bar group, who said its leaders had no knowledge of it. “I accept full responsibility for not having done everything to stop that piece from going out.”

The flier juxtaposed images of the Black Panthers, President Barack Obama, the Rev. Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam and black marchers holding a large ACORN banner. The caption read: “Is this the change YOU want to believe in? Violence and intimidation at the voting booth.”

Really, it all started in the late 1700s, when Carruthers Stanly, Morton’s great-great-great-grandfather, was emancipated from slavery at age 21 and became a wealthy plantation and barber shop owner.

That wealth allowed his descendents, and Morton, to have a proper education. Morton’s grandfather, Dr. Joseph Morton, was a professor of Greek and Latin.

Morton’s grandmother, Verina Morton-Jones, is often credited with being the first woman and the first black woman to practice medicine in Mississippi.

Verina Morton-Jones inspired Frank to be a doctor, until he ran into science classes at Long Island University. Science wasn’t for Morton, but he accomplished even more. He began in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the eastern district of New York in 1949, before becoming the first black Judge Advocate General in 1974.

“I’ve had a wonderful life,” Morton said.