-
OBABL Links & Resources
2010 April
Apr
20
From TheNationsBestAdvocates:
For NBA members, law is more than a career—it’s a commitment. United by a need to serve their communities, African American lawyers from across the nation attend the National Bar’s Annual Convention. This year, the National Bar Association and IMPACT will produce the first annual Nation’s Best Advocates (N.B.A.): 40 Lawyers Under 40 Gala at the 85th Annual Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Do you know an African American Lawyer, 40 or under, who is doing great things in the legal community? Share their story with the world by nominating this young lawyer for Nation’s Best Advocates: 40 Lawyers Under 40 This year, the National Bar Association and IMPACT will produce the first annual Nation’s Best Advocates (N.B.A.): 40 Lawyers Under 40 at the 85th Annual Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana. The purpose of this prestigious award is to recognize talented individuals (age 40 and under) within the African American legal community who have achieved prominence and distinction in their fields. Successful nominees will have demonstrated a strong commitment to empowering, uplifting, and advocating for the African American community. Nominees should represent a cross-section of legal professionals: solo practitioners, government lawyers, judges, academicians, corporate counsels, young elected officials, and others lawyers who are using their law degree in innovative ways. Winners are chosen based on: achievement, innovation, vision, leadership, and legal community involvement.
Apr
1
Ming Zhu, a recent Harvard Law grad and current fellow with the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights, just published a study on the tenure-track of minority law professors. She concludes in An Empirical Study of Race and Law School Hiring that while minorities are more likely to be hired, they are also more likely to be locked out of top tier posts.
From NLJ:
Zhu sought to figure out whether race plays a role in law school hiring. Law schools have been under pressure since the 1980s to boost the number of minority faculty members, which often is seen as a key to increasing minority student enrollment. In turn, higher minority enrollment is a cornerstone of increasing diversity throughout the legal profession.
Zhu analyzed data on 889 candidates:
Of the 889 candidates, 191 — just more than 21% — were hired by the following academic year, according to Zhu’s study. Minorities made up nearly 20% of those who were hired, but Asians, blacks and Latinos were all more likely than whites to be hired. Asians topped the list of successful hires, with nearly 43% of candidates landing a position. About 29% of Latino candidates got jobs, while slightly more than 24% of black candidates were hired. By comparison, about 21% of white applicants landed positions.
Zhu concludes:
“Taken alone, these results seem like a good sound-byte for the argument that minorities are being preferred in faculty hiring,” the report says. It notes, however, that without more information on qualifications, it’s impossible to know if the hiring decisions were a result of affirmative action or a stronger minority applicant pool.
The picture gets a bit murkier when it comes to where minority applicants were offered jobs. “Examining the placement of the hired candidates, it is immediately clear that minorities do considerably worse than non-minorities in terms of placement,” the study reads.
