Paul Weiss Launches Supreme Court Practice As Press Spotlight Returns To Partnership Diversity

Paul Weiss has long considered a focused appellate and Supreme Court practice, but never felt ready to pull the trigger until it could land a “superstar” to lead the practice. That all changed over the weekend when the firm announced it would be bringing in Kannon Shanmugam from Williams & Connolly to launch the dedicated practice group and help lead the firm’s D.C. office.

The relocation plays into a rousing match of Supreme Court advocacy musical chairs underway with Lisa Blatt departing Arnold & Porter to head back to Williams & Connolly to head its Supreme Court practice. Busy times.

Shanmugam’s move would be newsworthy in any event, but the vagaries of timing make it impossible to consider this high-profile move in light of the Paul Weiss’s recently elevated all-white (and almost exclusively male) partnership class. Just as the firm touted Sahnmugam’s arrival, the New York Times published a deep dive into Biglaw’s diversity woes focusing on Paul Weiss’s new class.

The article by Noam Scheiber and John Eligon frames the discussion by reminding everyone that, among Biglaw firms, Paul Weiss has one of America’s best records when it comes to diversity.

Paul, Weiss, with its 144 partners and about 1,000 lawyers, is, in fact, more diverse at the partner level than most of its peers. It has more African-American partners with an ownership stake, six, than a large majority of the country’s 200 biggest firms, and far more than elite competitors like Cravath, Debevoise & Plimpton and Davis Polk.

Women make up 23 percent of partners at Paul, Weiss, compared with 18 percent across the top 200 firms, according to data collected by ALM Intelligence.

But those laudable successes still don’t paint a picture of perfection. High-profile women like Beth Wilkinson, Alexandra Walsh, and Robbie Kaplan have left of late to start their own firms — great moves for them personally, but losing so many women in these roles forces the firm to work even harder to guarantee the future reflects the diversity it’s lost. The article details the hit-and-miss nature of mentoring programs that attempt to nurture young lawyers, but often can’t overcome the unconscious biases that exist across Biglaw:

But many of these young lawyers described a complicated reality, in which young minorities are welcomed at the firm and then frequently sidelined.

Some complained that people in power held them to different standards than their white male peers, or punished them more severely for mistakes.

“I think associates of color are absolutely justified in feeling like they have less margin for error,” said Jason Williamson, who was an associate at Paul, Weiss from 2008 to 2011 and now works at the American Civil Liberties Union. While this may be true at many workplaces, said Mr. Williamson, who is black, it is particularly so at big law firms.

At the risk of minimizing the significance of the problem, what Biglaw firms — even those making earnest efforts — need to understand is that addressing diversity is a lot like losing weight. What I mean is the slow creep of added pounds, like the cumulative structural impact of unchecked conscious and unconscious biases, didn’t happen overnight and it’s not going to be fixed by having salads for lunch. Mentorship programs and conscious efforts to account for diversity are necessary but they cannot adequately solve the problem by themselves because this isn’t realistically a problem to be “solved.” It’s a lifestyle change that requires a persistent efforts to stave off destructive habits.

And that’s OK! It’s not a “failure” just because a firm can’t solve discrimination overnight. It’s about doing what you can — constantly — and remaining constantly open to doing more. Firms have to be open about needing to scrutinize and be ready to overhaul practices they’ve taken for granted for years. Paul Weiss reacted to the press coverage occasioned by their unfortunate partnership class announcement — complete with an image that conveyed to many women and minority associates, accurately or not, the anxiety over career advancement they often feel in Biglaw culture — with a pledge to address the issue. That’s a good thing and shouldn’t be discounted. One solution offered by the firm was an influx of diverse laterals over the coming months.

And with the arrival of Shanmugam, an established Supreme Court advocate from one of Washington’s top shops, the firm begins to make good on this specific pledge, bolstering the firm’s practice while simultaneously adding a person of color to a high-profile position within the firm.

Now, Shanmugam, a FedSoc lifer who clerked for former Fourth Circuit judge Michael Luttig and Justice Antonin Scalia, finds himself an avatar of Paul Weiss’s efforts to improve the diversity that his mentors long railed against as unimportant.

Interesting times we live in.

Kannon Shanmugam Exits Williams & Connolly To Launch Paul Weiss Appeals Practice [National Law Journal]
Elite Law Firm’s All-White Partner Class Stirs Debate on Diversity [NY Times]

Earlier: Earlier: Paul Weiss Press Release Captures Everything Broken About Biglaw In One Image
Paul Weiss ‘Addresses’ Partnership Diversity Kerfuffle

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.