Biglaw Partners Give Back To Community With Tremendous Results

They're out there making history.

lamdlGreat things happen when Biglaw gives back. That’s the big takeaway from a feel good story out of Los Angeles. But before we get to all the good news, some background.

It was back in 2008 when three Biglaw partners decided they wanted to share the benefits they experienced from policy debate with traditionally underserved communities. Henry Weissmann, a litigation partner at Munger Tolles & Olson; Bart Williams a Proskauer litigation partner; and the late Sandra Seville-Jones, who was the longest tenured managing partner at Munger Tolles, knew one another from their high school debate days, but when they looked around they saw that the high school debate circuit had been decimated by years of budget cuts. So, working with the National Association of Urban Debate Leagues, they put their heads together to create the Los Angeles Metropolitan Debate League (LAMDL).

Weissmann told me that policy debate changed his life, and by establishing LAMDL they wanted to make a difference in the lives of students. Not only that, but the trio saw an opportunity to increase diversity in the legal profession, as the pipeline between debate and the law has always been a strong one. And Weissman notes the skills learned in policy debate directly translate to lawyering, including the close reading and analysis of research, argumentation skills, and learning complex issues from multiple viewpoints. Something I personally can attest to (indeed, three out of the four Above the Law editors have policy debate experience). Oh, and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor agrees.

And research bears that out — academic achievement is enhanced for participants in policy debate to a statistically significant degree. Seriously, the benefits of debate are staggering — it closes the achievement gap, increases college readiness, and high school students who participate in debate are three times more likely to graduate from high school than those who do not. And those impressive stats have held up here — since 2010, every LAMDL senior who went through the program graduated on time, and went on to either college at a two-year or four-year school, a local trade school, or into national service.

So, you can see this is an incredibly valuable program. And it’s also successful. LAMDL executive director Michael Cirelli shared that for the first time in the program’s history, they’ve qualified a team for the über prestigious Tournament of Champions. The ToC is held every year at the University of Kentucky, and this year Andrew Subingsubing and Jokim Bryant of Harbor Teachers Prep Academy will be participating!

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The team earned the last leg of their bid to the ToC at the UC Berkeley Invitational via a quarterfinals appearing and a 5-1 preliminary record. The debaters began their year strong, but then experienced some setbacks, falling short of earning the last piece of the their bid at several tournaments before the success at Berkeley. As Cirelli noted, their persistence and hard work really paid off. And, Subingsubing will continue his debate career at Northwestern where he received a debate scholarship (Bryant is still a junior).

In addition to the contributions of individuals in the legal profession — seriously, the board of directors is just littered with attorneys — LAMDL receives contributions from a number of Biglaw firms: Munger Tolles & Olson, O’Melveny & Meyers, MSK LLP, Loeb & Loeb, and Jenner & Block. They also have an internship program in partnership with Proskauer Rose.

And the LAMDL continues to grow. Despite the challenges of COVID, the league has actually grown the number of schools participating. Cirelli says, in terms of the amount of schools involved, they’ve only scratched the surface.


Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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