The Nine are all divine — but not all Supreme Court justices are created equal. Some are smarter than others. If you quiz former Supreme Court clerks, as we have, you’ll find that the Elect have strong opinions about who the smartest and most capable members of the Court are. (Depressingly enough, even after you became a justice of the United States Supreme Court, people will still rank you by your smarts.)

Liberal and conservative clerks alike generally cite Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as one of the sharpest and most self-sufficient — i.e., least clerk-dependent and clerk-driven — of the current justices. So some may be surprised by these tidbits, from RBG’s fascinating interview with Emily Bazelon (herself a descendant of Article III aristocracy, the granddaughter of David Bazelon, former chief judge of the Most Holy D.C. Circuit)

What do you think about Judge Sotomayor’s frank remarks that she is a product of affirmative action?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: So am I. I was the first tenured woman at Columbia. That was 1972, every law school was looking for its woman. Why? Because Stan Pottinger, who was then head of the office for civil rights of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, was enforcing the Nixon government contract program. Every university had a contract, and Stan Pottinger would go around and ask, How are you doing on your affirmative-action plan? William McGill, who was then the president of Columbia, was asked by a reporter: How is Columbia doing with its affirmative action? He said, It’s no mistake that the two most recent appointments to the law school are a woman and an African-American man.

And was that you?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I was the woman. I never would have gotten that invitation from Columbia without the push from the Nixon administration. I understand that there is a thought that people will point to the affirmative-action baby and say she couldn’t have made it if she were judged solely on the merits. But when I got to Columbia I was well regarded by my colleagues even though they certainly disagreed with many of the positions that I was taking. They backed me up: If that’s what I thought, I should be able to speak my mind.

Of course, the case for affirmative action back then, over 30 years ago, may have been stronger than it is today.

More discussion, plus the chance for you to sound off in the comments, after the jump.

* Take a look at this legal analysis of the AIG bonus fiasco [The Hartford Courant]

* A new report from the Project for Attorney Retention (sounds like something we can all get behind) shows that it makes better business sense to have attorneys work reduced hours rather than laying them off. [The American Lawyer]

* More drama in the never-ending Minnesota Senate race: Al Franken says Norm Coleman should pay for the costs of the trial if he loses. [MSNBC]

* California’s 1996 ban of affirmative action in education, public hiring, or contracting is being closely considered by the courts. [National Law Journal]

* In spite of the recent blood bath at lawfirms—law school applications are still up. [The Wall Street Journal]

* China fell short of international anti-trust standards, rejecting Coca-Cola’s $2.4 billion bid for Huiguan Juice [Reuters]

* Enough Madoff already. Madoff’s accountant was charged with fraud and surrendered. [abcnews.com]

In 1991, Yale Law School Professor Stephen Carter published a provocative book on affirmative action entitled Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby. The book became a bestseller and sparked a national debate about affirmative action and its effectiveness.

Over the long weekend, Professor Carter revisited the topic of affirmative action, in an op-ed piece for the New York Times:

Thirty years ago last week, the Supreme Court handed down its Bakke decision, hoping to end the argument over the constitutionality of affirmative action in college admission. But with hindsight, it’s clear that the justices mainly helped hasten the end of serious discussion about racial justice in America. As they set the stage for a lasting argument over who should get into college, the wound of race continued to fester, unhealed, and our politics moved on.

After discussing the Bakke ruling and Justice Powell’s controlling concurrence, familiar territory for most law students and lawyers, he writes:

Justice Powell’s laudable effort at compromise had sown confusion. Eventually, college administrators worked out their response: They would pay attention to the Bakke decision when it suited them — the rest of the time they would ignore it.

In the ensuing years, America has come to treat racial injustice the same way. Having failed miserably in our efforts to undo the damage wrought by two centuries of slavery and another of Jim Crow, we threw up our hands and moved on. We still fight over affirmative action and pretend it means we’re fighting over racial justice. We debate its pros and cons in order to avoid coming to grips with more fundamental challenges.

Especially in the ATL comments. But is arguing over affirmative action in the context of law schools or law firms missing the boat? Professor Carter seems to think so:

Those who suffer most from the legacy of racial oppression are not competing for spaces in the entering classes of the nation’s most selective colleges. Millions of them are not finishing high school. We countenance vast disparities in education in America, in where children start and where they come out. And we do not even want to talk about it.

So what should be done? Read more, after the jump.

[Ed. note: The title of this post is taken from our tipster, who helpfully explains what “matryoshka” are: “you know, those Russian dolls that fit inside each other.” For more, see Wikipedia.]

A tipster from the NYU Journal of International Law and Politics is incensed by a scoring rubric that he or she is being asked to use to rate 2L candidates for Journal editor positions. The tipster takes issue with the “Diversity” section of the rubric, which represents 18 points out of the 100 possible:

Diversity - Max of 18 Points - ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­____/18
Racial Minority/Ethnic Heritage 6 - ____/6
Sexual Orientation 6 - ____/6
Economic Hardship 6 - ____/6
Other (i.e. disability, age, etc) 6 - ____/6

We wonder about the standards set within the diversity categories. If you’re only a little ethnic, do you get a 2? Would Obama get just a 3, since he’s biracial? For sexual orientation, might someone who is not sexually oriented at all get more points for being celibate (and thus having more time to work on the Journal)?

Our tipster had more serious concerns:

My 3L colleagues and I on the NYU Journal of International Law and Politics are in the process of reviewing writing competition samples, resumes and personal statements to select next year’s class of 2L staff editors.

The editorial board has provided us with a scoring rubric to help us rank the (anonymous) applications. There is a point designation for applicants that describe themselves as minorities or homosexuals.

To wit: being a racial minority or a homosexual or having “ethnic heritage” (don’t we all have that?) is worth as many points as having an undergraduate degree in international studies, having a doctorate in international studies, and having authored a book on international studies … combined! Being 1/64 Cherokee or being attracted to other human beings with similar genitalia is worth as many points as speaking Mandarin, Swahili and Arabic … combined! (I could go on.)

And he or she does go on. Find the complete rubric, and the rest of our tipster’s rant, after the jump.

We spoke with someone affiliated with the NYU Journal of International Law and Politics who explained that the rubric is created by the Journal’s Board, which is composed of about 15 rising 3Ls. The person noted that the rubric is always controversial, but said diversity in background is an important factor as a proxy for diversity in opinion. The person disagrees with the tipster’s characterization of the under-weighing of international studies experience as it’s double-counted in the “International Interest and Experience” and “Editorial & Education” sections.

Does the rubric make sense? Judge for yourself, after the jump.

May 2008 is almost over, and it’s a month that Bingham McCutchen will probably be happy to put in the past. The month kicked off with Roofiegate. Then came this benchslap, reported by Legal Pad (in a post titled “Bingham Busted By Its Own Website”):

Almost every big law firm uses its website to tout its commitment to diversity and its global reach. For Bingham McCutchen, it may have cost the firm a bid for sanctions.

A Bingham employment law team including partner Wendy Lazerson and associates Jacqueline Bronson and Kristen Pezone was set to take a deposition in the wrongful termination case of Kim v. Poonsang Microtec Corp. on April 17. The day before the deposition, plaintiff’s attorney Frank Mayo of Los Altos served additional discovery, including some documents that were in Korean.

Bingham’s team insisted on postponing the deposition, saying they could not get the Korean documents translated in time. Mayo objected, saying his client had already flown up from Southern California. Things turned nasty and both sides moved for sanctions.

In a tentative order filed Thursday (see Page 31 of this pdf) , Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Socrates “Pete” Manoukian rejected both sides’ request for sanctions.

“This court finds it difficult to believe that no one in the office of [Bingham] is able to speak Korean, given that the Bingham web[site] has many referrals to its commitment to diversity and its ability to service, among others, Korean clients,” Manoukian wrote. [See, e.g., here (PDF).]

Ouch. As our tipster snarkily observed, “Live by the sword, die by the sword. For a firm that runs as much as this one does on pure PR, this is quite fitting.”

Funny — but fair? We contacted Bingham — which we’re not sure Legal Pad did, despite being an MSM blog — and received this statement, from firm spokesperson Claire Papanastasiou:

To use this tentative ruling to question Bingham’s commitment to diversity is misleading and false. Bingham has continuously been recognized as a leader in championing diversity in the workforce. More than 440 people at Bingham speak 51 foreign languages (including Korean), but this was not a simple matter of getting documents translated. This case involved the authentication of documents — which would have required a court-certified translator — and with a 16-hour time difference, the Bingham legal team wanted to confer with the client, who was in Korea, to determine the documents’ authenticity and discuss next steps. Bingham informed opposing counsel of the decision not to go forward as a courtesy. And finally, Bingham offered to take the deposition in Orange County and ended up with an order that simply provides what our lawyers were already willing to do. Efforts to transform this relatively minor discovery dispute into something more profound simply are unjustified.

Interesting. As noted by a Legal Pad commenter, the ruling “[s]eems more like a political dig against diversity efforts by Judge Manoukian.”

Speaking of diversity, Bingham has been honored as one of the best law firms for gays and lesbians, by Human Rights Campaign (Aaron Charney, holla); for Asian American lawyers, by Multicultural Law (Shinyung Oh, holla); and women, by Working Mother (pre-Roofiegate).

Alas, even if Korean Translation-gate was overblown, it wasn’t the end of Bingham’s unflattering media mentions in the month of May. Check out this National Law Journal article, which depicts Bingham as hemorrhaging talent and “troubled.”

Was this piece evenhanded journalism? Bingham thinks not. They’ve issued a lengthy and detailed response, blasting reporter Sheri Qualters’s article as “outrageous,” “poorly reported,” and “factually inaccurate by any objective measure.”

It’s kinda delicious. Read the whole thing, after the jump.

It’s hard pleasing everyone at Kirkland & Ellis. Sure, K&E offers oodles of prestige, cutting-edge work, and above-market bonuses. When we asked our associate readers what firm other than their own they’d most want to work for, Kirkland took third place.

But people will always find something to be upset about — and often there’s a political component to the K&E complaints. For example, some people think Kirkland tilts too far to the right, thanks to its association with prominent conservatives like Ken Starr and John Bolton.

Others think the firm tilts too far to the left, bowing down before the forces of political correctness. These critics object to the firm’s Diversity Networking Forums, its Big Gay Cocktail Parties…. and, most recently, its just-circulated “Diversity Census,” asking lawyers for their demographic data.

From a tipster:

Many of us at K&E find this [Diversity Census] offensive. Clients who inquire about the race or sex of the attorneys working on their matters should be told it’s none of their business and that the firm does not staff its matters in accordance with the racist or sexist quota requirements of its clients. If a client asked that no blacks work on its matters, presumably the firm would fire the client, but when the shoe is on the other foot, K&E partners are all too happy to oblige.

But is this really the purpose of the Diversity Census? No, according to the firm. We contacted Walt Lohmann, co-chair of the Firmwide Diversity Committee at K&E, who explained that “participation in the Kirkland Diversity Census is voluntary and anonymous (unless a respondent chooses to self-identify for purposes of receiving materials and event notifications).” Furthermore, “responses are not used in staffing decisions.”

Fair enough. But what if they were — would that be problematic? As reported last year by the American Lawyer:

Over the last few years, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., and others have raised the stakes for outside counsel, pressing firms to increase diversity in their ranks or risk losing clients. In one case… Wal-Mart dumped an outside firm that didn’t adequately adhere to the company’s diversity program.

Do efforts like Wal-Mart’s merit commendation or condemnation? Feel free to opine in the comments.

More information about the K&E Diversity Census, plus a copy of the Census, below the fold.

Judging from tips we receive and comments we read when we post about affirmative action, it seems that a whole lot of white guys in Biglaw feel disenfranchised by all this “diversity” talk. They complain when law firms have special scholarships for minorities, “diversity networking forums” for various groups, and, worst of all, cocktail parties for the gays.

If you’re an angry white male lawyer, and if you work in Chicago, you might want to attend this event:

White Men and Diversity: A Candid Dialogue

Tuesday, May 20, 2008
12:00 - 1:30 p.m.
The Offices of Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP
Chicago, Illinois

The Committee on Racial and Ethnic Diversity, in conjunction with the Chicago Committee on Minorities in Large Law Firms, will host a panel discussion entitled, White Men and Diversity: A Candid Dialogue on Tuesday, May 20 from 12:00 - 1:30 p.m.

This interactive panel discussion featuring William Von Hoene, Jr. (Executive VP, General Counsel, Exelon Corporation), Robert Yates (Editor, Chicago Lawyer) and Lawrence Gray (Partner, Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell) and moderated by Dr. Arin N. Reeves will begin a candid dialogue on white men’s perspectives on diversity efforts, the ways in which they feel included in and excluded by diversity initiatives in the legal profession, and insights on ways in which white men can become and stay engaged in creating a more diverse legal profession.

The emphasis on “candid” dialogue is intriguing. Does Katten expect its white males to show up and spout politically incorrect statements? White Males of Katten: don’t take the bait! They’re waiting to escort you from the building the moment you question why women and minority lawyers always get staffed on matters for certain clients. (Answer: It’s because the clients demand it, which explains pretty much everything in Biglaw.)

In all seriousness, White Males of Katten, we’d counsel against an excess of “candor” at said event. Complaining bitterly about how diversity initiatives are screwing you over won’t put you on the fast track to partnership. Just work hard and keep your mouth shut. Or get a sex change AND claim lesbian status (which would double your diversity value, while still allowing you to get with women).

As for the panel’s exploration of “ways in which white men can help create a more diverse legal profession,” here’s one answer: THEY CAN LEAVE.

P.S. We expected this event to be open to the public, since it is up on the web, co-sponsored by the Chicago Committee on Minorities in Large Law Firms, and featuring non-Katten panelists. But we contacted Katten and learned that, sadly, it’s not. If you work at another firm, dialogue candidly on your own time.

UPDATE / CORRECTION: As it turns out, this event IS free and open to the public. We received this correction, from a Katten representative:

The White Men & Diversity event about which you inquired is a Chicago Committee on Minorities in Large Law Firms event that is being hosted by Katten. The event is open to the public, and there is no charge for the event. Please let me know if you have further questions about this event. Thank you.

White Men and Diversity: A Candid Dialogue [Katten — Committee on Racial and Ethnic Diversity]

Poor Clifford Chance. It seems they just keep on getting sued. First this. Now this, from the New York Sun:

A Haitian woman is suing one of the world’s largest law firms for $75 million, claiming that the firm used her only as window dressing because of her race, fired her for complaining about it, and finally blacklisted her in the New York law community.

Caroline Memnon, who is black, says in the lawsuit that despite her $125,000 salary as an associate at the New York office of London-based Clifford Chance LLP, she was never given any real work….

After firing her in 2002, Clifford Chance, known at the time as Clifford Chance Rogers & Wells, “surreptitiously ‘blackballed’ [her] within the community of New York law firms,” the suit says….

“We believe this claim to be without merit and will be contesting the case,” a Clifford Chance spokeswoman said.

Did Clifford Chance “blackball” her? Or did they just give her a less-than-stellar job reference, which employers are certainly entitled to do? [FN1]

Two other law firms, Chadbourne & Parke and Manatt Phelps & Phillips, both offered Ms. Memnon employment and then withdrew their offers, according to the lawsuit….

[Ms. Memnon] was hired by Sullivan & Worcester’s New York office and began working in February 2007. Sullivan & Worcester terminated her employment that March, though she billed 143 hours in her first three weeks there, which is above the firm’s expectation of 150 hours a month, the suit says.

The shortness of her stay at Sullivan makes one wonder if other issues are at work here. Could Caroline Memnon be another Charlene Morisseau — although probably less fabulous, since the divalicious Morisseau is in a class by herself?

[FN1] Does anyone else remember that Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry David “recommends” someone for a job with Richard Lewis? Larry intends to make the recommendation a tepid one — “recommend,” in scare-quotes — but Richard doesn’t pick up on that. Law firms may be more attentive to such nuances.

Woman Sues Law Firm Over Blacklisting [New York Sun]

Sorry we’re late to the party on this HuffPo post, bearing the provocative title “Law Firm Segregation Reminiscent of Jim Crow.” It’s by Yolanda Young, a former staff attorney at Covington & Burling. Her claim, in a nutshell, is that Covington fills the ranks of its “staff attorney ghetto” with African-Americans, while the ranks of its partnership and partnership-track associate pool are overwhelmingly white.

Young’s post has already been discussed at Legal Blog Watch and the WSJ Law Blog. But considering how we love to fan flames of racial tension follow the issue of diversity in the legal profession so closely here at ATL, of course we’re going to cover it.

Here’s an excerpt (emphases added):

Blacks at Covington comprise less than 5% of the Washington office’s partners and associates, but make up 30% of its staff attorneys. A peek at the firm’s website doesn’t reveal this since, unlike all other lawyers there, staff attorneys aren’t pictured. Were they, a peculiar pattern would emerge…..

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.

Blacks bought into the notion, stressed by legal literature, ranking systems and law firm recruiting departments, that investing in a top legal education is paramount for those wishing to work at top law firms. It’s disheartening to then discover that the black student who borrows $120,000 to attend Georgetown will only earn half that of the white associate who’s paid $60,000 to attend the University of Maryland.

Covington began stockpiling its staff attorney ghetto with blacks and other minorities in 2005, shortly after the General Council [sic] of some of the country’s largest companies joined Roderick A. Palmore, Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary of Sara Lee in taking a tougher stance on law firm diversity. Signed by hundreds of General Counsel, this new “Call to Action” states they will retain firms that demonstrate a level of diversity reflective of their employees and customers and end their relationship with firms “whose performance consistently evidences a lack of meaningful interest in being diverse.”

Covington has certainly diversified its firm; however, its attorneys are far from equals. 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.”

You can read the rest of the post — it’s quite lengthy — over here.

What explains our delay? We were doing the MSM thing of waiting to hear back from Covington before posting (instead of just going ahead and writing about it, which would have been the more bloggy thing to do). They just got back to us, a few minutes ago; here is the first part of their statement:

We have long been committed to equal opportunity at all levels of hiring. Our ongoing efforts show positive results. In the case of our staff attorneys, we’ve been very successful in recruiting African-American lawyers. We attribute our success to a number of factors. We offer competitive compensation and benefits, which we will likely further enhance in the near future. This includes the innovative benefit of pay for pro bono work, and our staff attorneys average about 70 hours of pro bono work a year. Our staff attorneys are a stable, productive and respected part of our workforce. Part of this stability can be attributed to our recruitment process, which has benefited from the great number of referrals from our current staff attorneys.

The rest of the Covington statement appears after the jump.

In addition to reading Young’s post and the coverage of it, check out the material on the rest of her blog for background. Props to her for coming up with such headline gems as “Think of my mouth as your next sexual partner.”

P.S. Disclaimer: Please note that Kashmir Hill, former Covington & Burling paralegal, had no role in the writing of this post.

Law Firm Segregation Reminiscent of Jim Crow [Huffington Post]
Georgetown Law Grad Says Big Law Segregation Reminiscent of Jim Crow [Legal Blog Watch]
Ex-Staff Attorney Takes Aim at BigLaw Minority Hiring [WSJ Law Blog]
Spade Project [video blog of Yolanda Young]

The tipsters at Kirkland & Ellis who have complained about the gay cocktail party and the diversity networking forums would welcome this news, which comes from our home state. Reports Charles Toutant in the New Jersey Law Journal (subscription):

Seton Hall University School of Law has suspended its “Partners in Excellence” minority scholarship program while it considers whether it can make the selection process race-neutral, as federal regulators demand that it be.

The school has also entered an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights to ensure that an annual job fair, run by local law firms but promoted by the school, is not restricted to minority students.

The actions are the result of a departmental investigation in response to a 2003 complaint that the minority programs are discriminatory. The grievant, David Wilson, a white Brooklyn Law School graduate looking for a job, came across promotions of the job fair and scholarship program online. He reported to the Department of Education that the job fair was exclusively for minority students and that the law school’s Partners in Excellence program preferred minority students.

More details about the programs appear in the full article (subscription). The tipster who sent this our way predicts: “[T]his will undoubtedly be a comments clusterf**k. Let the closet racists be heard!”

What do you think of minority-only scholarships and job fairs within the legal profession? Sound off in the comments, or take our poll, which appears below.

We could break this down into a series of more targeted questions — e.g., scholarships vs. job fairs? which minorities deserve preferential treatment? — but we’re not Gallup. So here’s a rather broad question, designed to take the temperature of the ATL readership on a very general level.

Under Federal Scrutiny, Seton Hall Puts Minority Scholarships on Hold [New Jersey Law Journal]

We bring you two interesting updates on our friends at Kirkland & Ellis — one important, and one silly.

Let’s start with the trivial, and work our way up. First, from a tipster:

The balkanization of Kirkland & Ellis continues. Why should an “informal, visible network for attorneys to exchange ideas, provide support, and develop relationships” be based on race and/or sexual orientation? What’s next, separate cafeterias and drinking fountains?

A recent email from The Kirkland & Ellis LLP Diversity Committee reads:

Kirkland & Ellis Diversity Networking Forums (Chicago Office)

On behalf of the Diversity Committee, I am proud to announce a new addition to our diversity programming, Diversity Networking Forums. The main purpose of the Diversity Networking Forums is to provide an informal, visible network for attorneys to exchange ideas, provide support, and develop relationships. There will be four Diversity Networking Forums:

Asian Diversity Networking Forum
Black Diversity Networking Forum
Hispanic/Latino Diversity Networking Forum
GLBT Diversity Networking Forum

The Diversity Networking Forums are open to all Chicago Kirkland attorneys. If you are interested in becoming a part of any of these forums, please email Attorney Training and Development at [xxxx] by February 8 and indicate which forums you would like to join.

Note that the forums are “open to all.” We wonder if that language was added to avoid a psuedo-controversy like the one over K&E’s big gay party. We also wonder why you’d join one of these networking forums if you weren’t a member of the group in question. But see “fag hags” signing up for the LGBT group.

Okay, on to the second update. Perhaps in an effort to avoid an Aaron Charney debacle — or, on a smaller scale, a Schoenfeld v. Allen & Overy or a Morisseau v. DLA Piper — K&E has enacted a mandatory employment arbitration policy, applicable to all associates. From a tipster:

Kirkland just sent a memo to all of its associates, which they had to sign, reminding them that they were at will employees, and telling them they had to agree to arbitrate any employment dispute. Apparently a response to Charney-gate.

If you’re interested — perhaps you’re a labor and employment lawyer, or a Biglaw partner looking to foist such a policy on the associates at your own firm — check out the memo, after the jump.

If you’re looking for confirmation of the Clifford Chance bonus announcement we posted yesterday, check out this short article from Legal Week.

In other CC news, the firm is making overtures to LGBT lawyers, in the wake of its own Brokeback Lawfirm scandal. From TheLawyer.com:

Clifford Chance is setting up a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) network just months after settling a sexual orientation discrimination claim from former competition partner Michael Bryceland….

Clifford Chance tax partner Stephen Shea, who has been active in setting up the LGBT group, said the firm established the network to further foster diversity, but also to respond to client demand. As reported by The Lawyer (21 May), JPMorgan now asks prospective panel firms for diversity statistics and companies such as Transport for London are following suit.

This is par for the course — and in the U.S., too. If you want law firms to focus more on diversity, or if you think they focus too much on it already, you need to look to their clients. Much of Biglaw’s current emphasis on diversity is being driven by clients: Fortune 500 companies that want to be able to say they have diverse teams of lawyers handling their legal matters.

Clifford Chance Joins the N.Y. Bonus Wars [Legal Week]
Clifford Chance set to launch gay network [TheLawyer.com]

Earlier: Associate Bonus Watch: Clifford Chance Matches (For the Survivors)

She probably wouldn’t be very happy with her law firm. From the Minority Law Journal:

[N]owadays most associates don’t plan on spending their entire legal career at one law firm. But some associates are more likely to head for the exits than others. Nearly half of all white male midlevel associates say that they expect to be working at their current firm in five years, according to our Minority Experience Study. Just over 40 percent of minority male midlevels said the same. Of the minority female midlevels, though, fewer than a third planned to stay put.

Minority women seem to have more reason to want to leave big firms, according to our findings. [The study] showed women of color experiencing less satisfaction and more obstacles at large firms than their peers, including men of color.

You can read the full article — replete with numerous quotes from “diversity advisers, “diversity consultants” and “diversity officers” — over here.

P.S. Yes, the Wanda Sykes reference is pretty random. We just think that she is hilarious, and we try to mention her at every opportunity. We also think she bears an uncanny resemblance to one of our favorite jurists, Judge Janice Rogers Brown (D.C. Cir.; see photo at right).

P.P.S. And have you seen — or rather, heard — Wanda Sykes in the new Applebee’s ads? The restaurant chain has hired her to serve as the voice for their new “spokesapple.” Genius.

Why Are Minority Female Associates Leaving Law Firms? [Minority Law Journal]

It’s a term of art. We define a “comment clusterf**k as a post that generates over 100 reader comments (typically of a vicious and nasty nature — but that could be said of many, if not most, comments on ATL). We enjoy a good “CC,” and we haven’t had one here since Friday.

Hence this post. There’s no more surefire way to generate one than writing about affirmative action, a topic that tends to send y’all into a tizzy. From Fox News (gavel bang: commenter):

Does affirmative action work? An explosive study that suggests it does not is pitting the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights against the State Bar of California in a battle over admissions data that could determine once and for all if racial preferences help or hurt minority students.

“Currently only about one in three African-Americans who goes to an American law school passes the bar on the first attempt and a majority never become lawyers at all,” says UCLA law professor Richard Sander.

In an article published in the Stanford Law Review, Sander and his research team concluded several thousand would-be black lawyers either dropped out of law school or failed to pass the bar because of affirmative action.

Wow — those are shocking statistics. What’s the explanation?

Read more, after the jump.

Andrew Bruck takes a question at Wednesday’s press conference.

Every now and then, we leave our apartment. We did so on Wednesday, to attend the press conference of Law Students Building a Better Legal Profession, where the organization unveiled its law firm diversity rankings (accessible here; Los Angles Times article here).

It was quite informative. For those of you who might be interested — and we’re guessing there are a number of you, judging from the robust commentary on our earlier post — read more, after the jump.

We know how you all love to argue about affirmative action. It’s a hot-button topic here at ATL.

So here’s a proposal worth considering, from Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw (via Paul Caron):

If right-wingers are underrepresented in universities relative to the population and discriminated against by the left-wing majority, as [former Harvard president] Larry [Summers] suggests, should there be affirmative action for right-leaning academics?

It seems that, on principle, those on the left (who favor affirmative action to promote diversity and correct past injustice) should endorse such a university policy, and those on the right (who more often oppose affirmative action) would be against.

One could argue that a conservative law professor — especially a hard-core social conservative, not a law-and-economics or libertarian type — contributes as much to law school diversity (and discourse) as an African-American or female law professor from a socioeconomically privileged background, who went to an elite college and an elite law school, and has the standard liberal views of most legal academics.

Thoughts?

Mankiw: Affirmative Action for Conservative Professors? [TaxProf Blog]
Is academia serious about diversity? [Greg Mankiw]
The Liberal (and Moderating) Professoriate [Inside Higher Ed]

Are you concerned about diversity (or the lack thereof) at America’s top law firms? Have you been wishing for a handy resource that would rank the Biglaw shops by their performance on diversity metrics, as well as other measures, such as billable hours and pro bono work?

Well, you’re in luck. Later today, Building a Better Legal Profession will be issuing just such a report. Here’s a blurb for their upcoming press conference:

Over one-third of all large law firms in Manhattan don’t have a single African-American partner. Nearly half of all large law firms in Washington, D.C. don’t have a single Hispanic partner. One firm doesn’t have a single LGBT partner or associate in either office. On October 10, find out who.

Building a Better Legal Profession, a national grassroots coalition of law students, will release its first report on the status of the legal profession. The groundbreaking study compares the largest law firms in each of the top six legal markets (New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Northern California, and Southern California) by various metrics. The report ranks firms by billable hours, pro bono participation, and demographic diversity (percentages of partners and associates who are female, African-American, Hispanic, Asian-American, and LGBT).

On hand at the press conference will be statements of support from Marcia Greenberger, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, and Prof. Deborah Rhode, former chair of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession. Media: Please contact Andrew Bruck or Prof. Michele Landis Dauber for more information and sample rankings.

To get a sense of the rankings, click here (PDF), for a report card showing how D.C.’s top law firms stack up on diversity, or here (PDF), for the New York law firm diversity rankings.

The leading firm for diversity in Washington (with an overall grade of B+; almost all the firms earn C’s or worse): Nixon Peabody! Remember, they hired lots of minorities to sing their theme song (mp3).

For those of you here in D.C., consider attending today’s press conference (we’ll be there):

Wednesday, October 10, 2007 — 12:30 p.m.
National Press Club
13th floor, Zenger Room
529 14th St. NW
Washington, DC

Very exciting. Congratulations and thanks to Building a Better Legal Profession!

Law Students Building A Better Legal Profession [official website]
Diversity Report Card: D.C. [PDF]
Report on Big Law Firms [National Press Club]

As we mentioned before, we regularly receive all sorts of apocryphal rumors related to the fall recruiting process.

The gossip can be salacious and fun to read — even if turns out to be untrue. Like this rumor, which we heard from a University of Virginia law student quite some time ago:

Skadden has not interviewed here on grounds yet…. [Ed. note: We believe that they have by now.]

There are some rumors going around the school that a handful of my classmates, all of whom are minorities, have already received offers from Skadden. Obviously, any rumor must be taken with a grain of salt, but the word here is that offers were made very early to minority candidates in an effort to attract more minorities. I know of at least two with offers and both are African-American. Neither worked for Skadden last summer, which is the red flag in my eyes….

As I said, I’m not too familiar with the NALP rules, but others have indicated to me that those early offers are not proper given the NALP rules and regulations. I personally could not care — I’m not interested in Skadden or the markets in which Skadden is interviewing for at UVa — but I read the site regularly and wanted to pass along the information.

Sadly, it appears that this gossip — while juicy and potentially controversial — is not true.

The explanation appears after the jump.

From the opinion of Chief Justice John “Sordid Business” Roberts:

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

From Justice John Paul Stevens’s dissent:

“John, John, John, you don’t even — you’re glib. You don’t even know what Brown v. Board of Education is. If you start talking about school integration, you have to evaluate and read the research papers on how schoolchildren are affected by racial segregation. That’s what I’ve done. Then you go and you say that no member of the Court at the time of Brown would have agreed with today’s decision.”

Enough quoting from the opinions. How should we react to this ruling?

1. Let the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin!

2. Brown v. Board has been eviscerated!

3. American schoolchildren will soon be getting after-school milkshakes at lunch counters with Robert Bork!

(Note to diner owners: Keep those floors dry — or at least have a warning sign up while you’re mopping. If Judge Bork slips and falls, he WILL sue your ass.)

Court strikes down school integration plans [SCOTUSblog]
Schools Must Ignore Race in Placing Pupils, Justices Say [Associated Press]

* If you’re not spreading your music like herpes, then you’re just paying an extra 30 cents for the same product you’ve always been buying; as a side note, doesn’t Damon Alburn look dreamy these days? [New York Times]

* The SEC wants to be more like a friend than a parent, but watch out if you try to sneak out of the house after curfew on a school night. [FT.com via MSN]

* She may fight it until she regains her dignity writes another best seller, but chances are that I’ll get my groove back before she does. [New York Magazine’s Daily Intelligencer]

* Remember how Andrea from Beverly Hills, 90210 used her grandma’s address, and Vivian Abromowitz lived in the Slums of Beverly Hills to attend the prestigious public high school? Well, this is different. [Los Angeles Times]