Biglaw, Law Schools

You 'Couldn't Find Anyone' To Diversify Your Panel? Sell That Bridge To Someone Else

How are lawyers still so tone deaf and clueless about the need for diversity in the profession?

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There are so many things in our legal world to fulminate about that I hardly know where to start. So, in other words, my dander is up. And for those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, it means to become angry or annoyed.  Here’s more than you probably will ever need or want to know about the origin of the phrase, but it may be worth using at a networking event. One never knows.

Two things this past week or so particularly set me off. The first was a flyer for a roundtable discussion on intellectual property, subtitled “experts weigh in on the year’s hottest issues in patent litigation.” So far, so good. However, the roundtable had no diversity, none.  Unless my vision is worse than I think it is with my 3.0 readers, all I saw on the brochure were white males, no women lawyers, no minority lawyers.

Hey, folks, this is 2019, and if the Oscars can start to get a grip, why can’t you? I mean by “you” the Daily Journal (the Los Angeles legal newspaper) and California Lawyer. I refuse to believe that there are no women and/or minority lawyers who have expertise on the topics.  And if you tell me that you couldn’t find anyone, I’m not buying that bridge. Is anyone else pissed off about this? Or is it just me, an old lady lawyer, whistling in the wind yet again? And I can’t whistle, but Humphrey Bogart could.

I’ve been pushing for diverse panels ever since I was in-house and saw programs sponsored by big muckety-muck groups with no women on them, and the answer was always, “We couldn’t find anyone.” This excuse came from a Biglaw partner who should have known better, did know better, but was chagrined at being called to task for something that shouldn’t have needed any pointing out. I wonder if anything has truly changed since then. Surely there are women and minority lawyers who are experts in patent litigation.

I don’t get how some lawyers are still tone deaf, clueless, whatever your choice of adjectives, about the need for diversity in the profession, and how a program like this sends, at least to me, all the wrong signals about the value of a diverse profession. Joe Patrice’s recent column underscores that point with his discussion of the most recent partnership class announced by Paul Weiss.

Why is diversity so hard? It shouldn’t be with women composing half of incoming law school classes. The numbers are less-than stellar for minorities.

That brings me to my second “dander up” experience this past week. This story is Exhibit A for why law schools are doing such a miserable job of turning out practice-ready lawyers. I am not making this up.

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U.S. News and World Report is rolling out a new measurement: “scholarly impact” of law schools. This would be a second measurement, after its rankings, but this one would be based on law review citation counts. I am not joking.

LawProfBlawg says it better than I ever could. “So, I could have sworn law students are looking for a quality education without mortgaging their future too much with the ability to have a rewarding career…Who will the rankings really serve apart from U.S. News? My guess is that it will serve the egos of professors who live for those rankings. It will not serve the students in any way.” Precisely.

Everyone is hollering about the fact that law school doesn’t prepare lawyers ready to take their places in the profession. Law professors jostling for citation rankings will pay even less attention to the students while they “campaign” in whatever way one does for such things, while the students are ignored. Having just endured another Hollywood love fest makes me wonder about what effect these rankings will have on professors (tenured or tenure track of course) who are too busy to teach, leaving that to adjuncts who actually know something about the nitty-gritty of practice and who can and do tell the truth about the underbellies of the profession. What if professors spent less time on research and writing and more time on teaching, mentoring, and clinical projects that help students succeed?

Will there be an awards ceremony for those who have the most citations? Should the award be in the form of a hand clapping itself on the back? It’s bad enough that many students are not getting the legal education they are paying for. Just look at recent bar exam passage rates. Students want a legal education that prepares them for the profession. They want the best legal education they can “afford” that will enable them to pass the bar, get jobs, and help clients. Isn’t that what law school is supposed to do?

And if these professors purportedly make an impact on legal academia and the law, then why is legal education such a mess? I doubt if many peeps applying to law school even know what law review is and could care less who wins a citation count derby. If you took a poll of law school applicants, would any one even care about that in deciding where to apply? Perhaps those applicants think that they will spend their legal career working on very important cases, when the truth for most students is much more mundane. Will law students think that they’ll get even less bang for their student loan bucks?

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One final thought: if you’ve taken the February bar, please do yourself a favor and do NOT discuss your answers with ANYONE. Just because someone else answered a question differently than you did doesn’t mean that she’s right and you are wrong. Don’t perseverate. Get some sleep, do something fun, and STFU.

old lady lawyer elderly woman grandmother grandma laptop computerJill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.

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