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OBABL Links & Resources
2008 December
Dec
28
Attorneys At The Top
Filed Under Profiles • Leave a Comment
The Network Journal’s December cover story is “Attorneys at the Top.” It features:
Kirk G. Forrest, Esq., Vice President, General Counsel Chief Compliance Officer & Secretary Minerals Technologies Inc., New York City
Denise M. Grant, Esq., Partner, Shearman & Sterling L.L.P., New York City
Phillip Isom, Esq., Partner, O’Melveny & Myers L.L.P., New York City
Ackneil M. Muldrow III, Esq., Partner, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld L.L.P., New York City
Alphonso E. Tindall Jr., Esq., Partner, Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge L.L.P., New York City
Dec
26
Happy Holidays!
Filed Under Social Engineer • Leave a Comment
Barron Stroud Esq. hosted an intimate Christmas gathering. Click on the pictures below to enjoy all of the holiday shots.
Barron and his mother Liz
Dec
18
Stand Up Series - Afterward
Filed Under Stand Up! • 10 Comments
Yesterday was to end my three part series imploring black attorneys to stand up. I used Covington & Burling partner, Eric Holder, to highlight the lack of mentoring and support for some black attorneys. I referenced the legal blog, Above The Law, in an examination of the double standard with which black attorneys must contend. Finally, I explained my decision to file a formal complaint against my former firm, Covington & Burling. The interest in the series has been terrific and many of the responses have been illuminating. Thank you for contributing and please, keep the dialogue going. And speaking of comments, below I seek to dispel some myths and clear up some false assumptions put forth by readers.
Myth: Staff Attorneys Are Never Promoted
I was surprised to see comments suggesting that being a staff attorney is always a dead end. Interestingly enough, just before Covington began hiring a large number of minorities as staff attorneys, two white staff attorneys were promoted. One became an associate despite the fact that he wasn’t on main journal at his law school (ranked 20th by US News). The other, a special counsel, lists no journal or honors distinctions from his law school, which is ranked 100th. So why is no one qualified for promotion now? What’s changed? It should also be noted that many large firms throughout DC do offer promotion opportunities to staff attorneys. Some firms even provide to staff attorneys offices within the firm’s main building.
Myth: All BigLaw partners and associates have top grades and hail from top schools. Clearly they are brilliant because it takes a genius to handle complicated legal matters.
Perusing Covington’s attorney bio page, I’m just on the letter B when I score a white associate who lists no journal or honors distinctions. She and other white associates attended law schools ranked below 35. I don’t mean to pick on this particular woman, but I think it’s necessary to make the point. My sense from working as a “cog” at Covington was that yes, there is a wizard behind the curtain masterminding cases. Beyond those one or two people, the work is divided and distributed to any number of competent people who may have little or no knowledge of the case beyond their small portion. With a knowledgeable librarian to rely on as a resource and a modicum of partner oversight, most reasonably intelligent lawyers can handle their legal assignments. Partners recognize this. They wouldn’t occasionally hire the client’s dumb son if they thought he could really screw something up. And even if someone does, you simply write a brief explaining the situation to the court.
Myth: Black staff attorneys must not be qualified for other firm positions because law firms “bend over backwards” to hire black associates.
First, see above. It would seem to me that an organization bending over backwards would have in its midst some black associates and partners with the kind of lackluster credentials I pointed out above. Instead, they are to a one—TIGHT! Additionally, Covington has routinely hired black staff attorneys who attended top law schools. At one point, there was a black woman there who’d attended Yale Law School, which did away with grades a long time ago. It would seem to me that a firm that is busy turning over rocks would’ve considered those attorneys for some more challenging work.
Note: I don’t think one’s GPA or a person’s school rank is necessarily indicative of his/her intelligence. These are simply the rules that BigLaw has put forth. I’m merely pointing out the hypocrisy. Read more
Dec
17
Why I Decided To Stand Up - Part 3 of 3
Filed Under Stand Up! • 10 Comments
I hadn’t intended to sue Covington. I had not even intended to write about the firm. The first time I heard the saying, “never shit where you eat,” I thought, words to live by. Covington paid me a lot of money to do what was often not very difficult work. The vast majority of people (black, white, Asian, Latino, and so on) I encountered there were cordial, professional and smart, not geniuses, but competent individuals. Even after the ground rules were established and second-class citizenry in full effect, I was content to sit at my 4 X 7 table and click away. For me, it was about the money, but contrary to many of the comments I’ve read, it was not the view held by many others. My impression of Covington’s staff attorneys was that they were hardworking people who took their jobs seriously and really wanted to practice law. Among them were recent law graduates who, unable to secure traditional legal jobs (last I heard, there were more attorneys than jobs available) and bogged down with student loan debt, took what they could find. There was also a group of experienced attorneys who because of a life circumstance–relocation, stalled career, and time off to raise children among them—had ended up off the associate track. In other words, there but for the grace of God…
While at Covington, for the most part, I kept my head down and my mouth closed, but everyone SHOULD have a line. The day Rosa Parks drew hers, she sat down. Black folks have been standing up ever since. It’s tougher today though because things are much improved, and let’s face it, we FINALLY have a little something to lose.
You’ll learn all of the details (sadly, I have no “bend over” references ala Aaron Charney) leading up to my decision to sue Covington when my complaint is filed in DC Superior Court in January, but for now, a few specifics. My first year at Covington I received one of the highest evaluations of any staff attorney and was awarded the highest bonus ($10,000 prorated). My fortunes changed dramatically after I made mention of the disparate treatment of staff attorneys and complained about one of my officemates using the firm’s computer and internet service to amuse herself and other white attorneys in the office with website jokes centered on the etymology of various racial slurs, i.e., spic, oreo, nigger…(And yes, of course, the racist violator of the firm’s “zero tolerance” policy is still gainfully employed at Covington)
Things got so tense that the partner in charge of our group had to hold a staff meeting in which he made his now infamous “monkey” reference. Immediately thereafter, he started exhibiting textbook “hostile” behavior towards me. He would yell at me and speak disparagingly of me in front of my colleagues. But hey, I’m from Louisiana and am somewhat familiar with angry white people, so I just kept coding documents thinking that no way would this “brilliant” partner be so bold as to terminate me.
I was wrong. With two hours notice, the firm fired laid me off.
The worm turns after the jump. Read more
Dec
16
OBABL Q and A with Elie Mystal
Filed Under A Day In The Life Of... • 11 Comments
Will Lim and Elie Mystal
Earlier today I wrote about my impressions of the popular legal blog, Above The Law. Now, ATL’s editor-in-chief, Elie Mystal, weighs in on the discussion by participating in an OBABL Q and A.
OBABL: Would you share your general impressions regarding comments generated on posts that contain an African American component?
ELIE: In every post, there are a small minority of people who want to seek to say the most negative and hurtful things they can imagine. If it’s a post involving women, the sexist comments rain down. If it’s a post about gays the homophobes are out in force. The comments when we talk about an African-American or an African-American issue are sadly predictable, but the goal is the same. Some people just want to say that most hurtful thing possible. Every site that allows anonymous commentary has to deal with this at some level.
OBABL: I’d like for you to share your thoughts and feelings regarding the change in tone of comments directed at you before and after your identity was disclosed. I followed the ATL IDOL competition closely. You were the runaway favorite, but this seemed less so once you posted your picture.
ELIE: The change in tone was entirely predictable to me and every “black/white/other” friend I have. During the competition, my friends and I joked about how race would suddenly play a role in the negativity directed at me if I won the competition. But let’s not forget that I’ve been black “all my life.” I learned a long, long time ago to detach my feelings of self-worth and accomplishment from the prejudiced perspective of a minority of people. My mother was born in 1950 in the heart of Mississippi. She dealt with a brand of racism I still can’t fully comprehend. I deal with a couple of idiots who want to hurt my feelings. I try to keep that perspective as I go about my day.
OBABL: Please share with me your perspective on the BLSA flap.
ELIE: It reminded me that absolute racial tolerance and equality is actually an unattainable goal that people from all walks of life have to work towards everyday. It always bothers me when a person (black or white) says “I’m not prejudiced,” because the minute you feel like that is the minute you stop trying to be even more tolerant and open to new ways of understanding an issue. The best a person can hope for is to not let prejudice influence the decision right in front of them. You do your best and then you move on to the next decision. It’s an ongoing, daily, largely internal struggle.
That said, that internal struggle is exhausting and everybody makes mistakes from time to time. That’s what happened here. I make mistakes all the time. All you can do is try to learn from them and move on. Based on the BLSA president’s apology, I think that is what she is doing. If everybody handled their mistakes like she has, we would all make even more progress.
OBABL: What advice would you offer to minorities working in racially tense environments?
ELIE: Ha. If I had a great answer for that question I’d spend the rest of my life trying to get the message out. My thoughts on this are always evolving: as I get older, as I experience more successes and failures, as I get more jaded, as Obama wins Indiana …I think that the one thing that has been relatively consistent is that I’m not “afraid” of both being black and being in a professional environment. I don’t try to “act white” or “act black” or pretend that race has never played a factor in my life or suggest that I’ve been a victim of the worst kinds of oppression. I’m the sum of all my experiences, and being a minority is part — though not necessarily the most important part — of those experiences. I try my best and don’t suffer fools. Hopefully that will work. Read more
Dec
16
After I submitted my “Jim Crow” essay to The Huffington Post, I found out it had been posted when a barrage of angry emails started filling up my screen. Interestingly enough, they weren’t coming from the HuffPo but from one of my favorite blawgs, Above The Law. The website’s founder, David Lat is a member of The Federalist Society and admits to fanning “the flames of racial tension.” [See Correction] More than being a conservative, he is honest, ironic and in the know—he has an eye in every corner of BigLaw. Though a regular ATL reader, I’d never bothered with the comments, so I was shocked (and more than a little hurt) to be assaulted with irrelevant rants about the injustices of Affirmative Action.
For the most part their remarks defied logic and even ignored facts eventually verified by Covington. They did, however, get in one good lick. My essay contained a few misspelled words. In one instance, I had meant to type General “Counsel,” which I’d spelled correctly throughout the piece, but mistakenly typed “Council.” I was troubled by the mistake for quite some time (even though my HuffPo editor, who is now with the Wall Street Journal, missed the error as well). A friend tried to offer perspective by pointing out this NYTimes article that explains to its readers that misspellings are an occupational hazard to writing.
But what really opened my eyes to the true workings of this world was another ATL post.This time, Lat turned his attention to the sloppily written missive, he gently said included “a handful of minor typos,” emailed by Paul Hastings Associate, Shinyung Oh, on her way out the door. The post received over a thousand comments, and I could find not a single quip about the flaws in her writing.
Only a few months ago, I came upon the ATL story of two Cleary associates, who, lacking sleep and excel spreadsheet acumen, made a gross error:
According to the various affidavits (posted below) the Cleary first-year did not notice that the 179 contracts were marked as “hidden” in Excel, and certainly didn’t notice that those entries became “un-hidden” when he globally reformatted the document.
Cleary had to file a motion before the bankruptcy court asking for relief from the final sale order due to mistake or excusable neglect. After reading the comments and finding not a single suggestion that the two were “incompetent” or “unqualified,” I knew, even before identifying them on Cleary’s website, that the two were not black.
Apparently, making a mistake is only a problem when you’re black! Since everyone makes mistakes, black attorneys know that if they stand up, they are vulnerable to attacks. We don’t get the benefit of the doubt or even the opportunity to tell the whole story. At no time was this more apparent than when ATL revealed that the anonymous contestant readers had selected as the next editor-in-chief of ATL was, SURPRISE, a brother.
Part 1 of 3 - Should Eric Holder Stand Up For Black Attorneys At Covington?
Part 3 of 3 - Why I Decided To Stand Up
Elie’s saga after the jump. Read more
Dec
15
As OBABL predicted, Eric Holder has been nominated to serve as Attorney General. It is a historic moment and one that Holder has seemingly been working towards for much of his career. He has served as a US Attorney for the District of Columbia and a Deputy Attorney General—the first African American, incidentally, in either position. Simply stated, I am proud of him. My admiration, although sincere, is not without its complexity.
Mr. Holder’s time as a litigation partner at Covington & Burling LLP coincided with the period I chronicled in an essay entitled, “Law firm segregation reminiscent of Jim Crow,” for The Huffington Post. An abridged version appears below, but you can read it in its entirety here.
Blacks at Covington comprise less than 5% of the Washington office’s partners and associates, but make up 30% of its staff attorneys, the non-partner track lawyers who handle the menial legal tasks that associates shun. While paralegals have their own offices, as many as ten staff attorneys share windowless file rooms. Segregated from other lawyers in the firm, we go uninvited to attorney-only firm functions and are not provided jury duty or maternity leave…
Covington’s black staff attorneys (like its black partners and associates) hail from top law schools like Harvard, Duke and Georgetown while several white associates and partners attended schools like Catholic, Kentucky and Villanova (all ranked well below 50). Taken as a whole, the black staff attorneys’ average law school rank is higher than that of white staff attorneys at the firm.
The vast majority of Covington’s black attorneys do no substantive work, have no control over their case assignments and no opportunity for advancement. This seems to be just the sort of structure the U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission warned against in its 2003 “Diversity In Law Firms” report which stated, “In large, national law firms, the most pressing issues have probably shifted from hiring and initial access to problems concerning the terms and conditions of employment, especially promotion to partnership.”
So dysfunctional was Covington that while addressing the issue of racial sensitivity at a staff meeting, a partner told a joke that referenced his pet monkey.
Covington’s public response confirmed much of the above.
Since President-elect Barack Obama’s announcement regarding Mr. Holder, some have suggested that Mr. Holder’s seeming disinterest in the plight of blacks at his firm should be taken into account when evaluating his fitness to be Attorney General. From one blogger:
It’s troubling to hear about black professionals in supposedly high prestige workplaces being subjected to disparate treatment while a prominent black partner did little or nothing about it.
The Justice Department, in a sense, is the most powerful law firm in the world… If a black partner in one of the most powerful Washington law firms can turn a blind eye to the discrimination in his own firm, I have to question why Barack Obama believes he is the right man to become Attorney General of the United States [.] SkepticalBrotha
I, for one, hope that Mr. Holder’s affiliation with Covington does not impede his opportunity to once again serve his country. I do believe, however, that it is important to acknowledge the fact that Mr. Holder’s mission at Covington did not include addressing the disparate treatment of minority attorneys working in his firm.
My personal exchanges and observations of Mr. Holder after the jump. Read more
Dec
10
Earlier, we reported The Honorable Jesse Jackson Jr.’s strong desire to be the new “one” in the US Senate. Now the congressman has been caught on tape “interviewing” with recently arrested Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Rep. Jackson says he did nothing wrong. We sure hope that’s true, but at the very least, please don’t let him have a mouth like his father.
Dec
10
The Boston Bar Association’s 1st Annual Welcome Back to School Reception
Filed Under Announcements • 1 Comment
The Boston Bar Association Cordially Invites you and your Friends to
The 1st Annual Welcome Back to School Reception
Leading the Way to Your Career: Running out of Law School
Thursday, January 15th, 2009 - 4:30-7:00 p.m.
John Adams Court House: 1 Pemberton Square, Boston, MA
A Short Presentation by Leaders of the law followed by a Reception and Networking Opportunities
- Whether 1st year or last semester make Law School Count
- How to Meet the Right People in the Community
- Know if you have the Right Job
Speakers:
Peter Dziedzic, Jr., Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
Nicole Murati Ferrer, Office of the Corporation Counsel
John J. Hightower, Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P.
Renee Inomata, Burns & Levinson LLP
Moderated by: Brent L. Henry, Vice President and General Counsel
Partners HealthCare System
Sponsored by: Diversity and Inclusion Section
For Questions or Comments Please Contact: sections@bostonbar.org
Dec
9
In a drawn-out answer infused with double talk in late July, Obama said, “Affirmative action is not going to be the long-term solution to the problems of race in America because, frankly, if you’ve got 50% of African-American or Latino kids dropping out of high school, it doesn’t really matter what you do in terms of affirmative action. Those kids are not getting in to college.” In a feat of linguistic acrobatics, the presumptive Democratic nominee misses the point and makes the case for even greater affirmative action. Obama sidesteps the fact that affirmative action was intended not to solve racial problems, but to achieve racial equality. One involves the heart, the other the wallet.
In his 1965 commencement address at Howard University, President Johnson made clear the need (though it was never fully realized) for an aggressive and sweeping affirmative action plan to help “the poor, the unemployed, the uprooted and the dispossessed.” These are the very young people Obama suggests demonstrate the limits of affirmative action.
Obama has been quick to criticize African Americans for the ways in which they have failed their community. Perhaps it is time he extended his scrutiny to the actions of whites — not about slavery, but about the issue Ira Katznelson exposes in his book When Affirmative Action Was White.
Katznelson writes in great detail about how the G.I. Bill of the 1940s was crafted to favor whites. Indeed, a study at the time concluded the legislation looked as though it was written “For White Veterans Only.”
Black veterans were excluded from job-training programs, put on paths to low-paying jobs and denied housing and business loans. Worse, they were denied admission to white colleges at a time when small, underfinanced black colleges did not have enough openings for the estimated 70,000 black veterans in the late 1940s. It’s hard to imagine that limiting one black generation from the opportunity of a college education wouldn’t in some way hamper the next generation.
Obama would be wise to read Katznelson’s book and inform his position on affirmative action. Historical facts might help him avoid such flimsy discourse.
