Without Significant Changes, Diversity In The Legal Profession Will Remain On Life Support

According to Bryan Stevenson of Just Mercy, what are the four things required to bring about social change?

“Keep some ice on me, Rocky, Rocky like Balboa / Once you win, win, win you gon’ want more / Set a trend, trend, trend, need an encore / I was down on my last when I found myself / I’ll be a fighter until the end, ‘til my last breath.Future

I recently had the chance to watch the movie Creed. It was superb. Michael B. Jordan did a masterful job of portraying the fictional character Adonis Johnson Creed, Apollo’s son. But then again, I have always been a softie for mentor-themed movies that feature promising talents in need of some guidance.

Perhaps Creed was especially moving to me because Sylvester Stallone’s iron-willed character Rocky was diagnosed with the same exact illness that recently sucker punched my family and stole away my father’s life.

Based on his epic performance in Creed, I was elated to hear that Michael B. Jordan will star in the movie adaptation of the book Just Mercy, which is based on the true story of Bryan Stevenson, a young lawyer who founded the Equal Justice Initiative – a legal practice dedicated to defending the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children.

Bryan Stevenson is the ultimate real-life fighter you haven’t heard from enough yet and are bound to hear more about in the near future. In fact, my colleague Jeena Cho just wrote about Stevenson this week. You may recall seeing his book being sold at your local Starbucks or you may remember reading about him in a past column.

As I have previously mentioned, Sasha Dichter, Chief Innovation Officer at Acumen Fund, has highlighted four things that are necessary for social change to happen. He derived these four keys from a speech by none other than Bryan Stevenson. Stevenson’s TED talk about America’s justice system has attracted more than two million views and “inspired one of the longest and loudest standing ovations in TED history.”

As noted by Dichter, Stevenson states the four things required for social change are:

Sponsored

  1. We need to get proximate to injustice. “The only solutions that work are the ones that are developed when one has an up-close view of a problem.”
  2. Change the narrative. “What is really going on when, say, a 14-year-old black boy lashes out and throws a book at a teacher? Is the solution to incarcerate that child or to ask what happens to a child who has lived for 14 years surrounded by violence?”
  3. Keep hopeful. “We give up on issues that we believe are hopeless, wrongs that we tell ourselves simply cannot be righted. ‘Injustice prevails when hopelessness persists.’”
  4. Do uncomfortable things. “Whether it is the people who led or joined the civil rights movement (or any other movement that created large-scale change), each and every person made a decision at a critical juncture that they were willing to be uncomfortable and put themselves on the line.”

To bring about social change, we must get in the ring, change the narrative, keep hopeful, and do uncomfortable things. We must fight for diversity. If we don’t, who will? In life, there is no three-knockdown rule and there is no bell to save you; there never has been, there never will be. You must put yourself on the line, on the ropes, again and again. No pain, no gain.

In 2010, 88.1 percent of lawyers were white. In 2000, 88.8 percent of lawyers were white. These percentages were taken from the U.S. Census Bureau reports for 2010 and 2000, respectively. In other words, since 2000, minorities in the legal profession have increased by less than 1 percent of the total attorney population. When it comes to diversity in the legal profession, the status quo is the reigning champion.

Of the 223 firms The American Lawyer surveyed, minorities account for just 14.1 percent of all attorneys. Among partners, only 7.6 percent are minorities. According to NALP, only 5.4 percent of partners at the 200 largest firms are minorities. In other words, 92 to 94 percent of Biglaw partners are white. The status quo is in need of more formidable challengers.

Diversity is not self-executing. It never has been, it never will be. As agents of change, our success is incumbent upon those willing to go toe-to-toe with the status quo.

Sponsored

We must fight for what we believe in and get up one more time than we fall down. Furthermore, we should help others when they fall down. We should seek promising talents in search of some guidance and look to mentor them. For diversity in our profession to have a fighting chance, it needs more advocates and mentors in its corner.

All else being equal, the next three graduating classes of law students will only contribute about 1 percent more diversity to our profession. If after twenty years, diversity in the legal profession rose a mere 2 percent and Biglaw partners remained over 92 percent white, then would we begin to truly hold each other and ourselves accountable?

Excuses don’t win boxing matches or championship title belts. Excuses won’t beat the status quo. It is time to change the narrative.

At the current rate, the 2020 U.S. Census Bureau report will look awfully similar to the 2010 report. And our profession will continue to look much more like a mirrortocracy than a meritocracy. If we don’t breathe a breath of fresh air into the industry, then diversity in our profession will remain on life support.

Just as the movie Creed breathed new life and brought more diversity into an old franchise and made it even better, I believe our generation, the Millennials, can breathe new life and bring more diversity into an old profession. And yes, we can make the legal profession better than it has been.


Renwei Chung is the Diversity Columnist at Above the Law. You can contact Renwei by email at projectrenwei@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter (@renweichung), or connect with him on LinkedIn