Biglaw Firm Stereotypes (toronto)

[Pantalaimon]

14 hours ago, KOMODO said:

Yeah, I absolutely think it's relevant. Every law firm on Bay Street is grappling with how to correct the underrepresentation of visible minorities at various stages of their legal careers, and the whole point of this discussion is that we're trying to understand the best way to achieve that. Various people in this thread (including yourself, I take it) are arguing that McT's program for hiring exclusively black and indigenous 1L candidates is better than the other EDI-informed student hiring strategies we currently have (though we all agree that no single program will be enough to completely fix the system issue of racial bias in the legal industry).

I personally think that the other EDI-informed strategies you've mentioned do absolutely nothing beyond hiring the student class. Whereas MT's approach at least has a shot of fixing the problems upstream of articling.

From my observation, part of the problem with above-average attrition in underrepresented groups is because law turns pretty quickly into a one-on-one or maybe two-to-one learning relationship with partners and maybe a senior/midlevel associate, and all the unconscious bias training in the universe won't prevent partners from picking a student out of the class that they get along with. If you're going to be working 50 hours a week with someone, it had better be someone you like, and I think the science tells us that humans like people that remind us of ourselves. Getting some underrepresented people into the pipeline, through whatever means, should pay dividends because those people will then be more likely to select students for their practice groups that remind them of them, and so on.

[KOMODO]

1 hour ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

While I agree that @xdarkwhite’s post does not fully represent your argument, @KOMODO, I think what they are reacting to is that your view is implicitly that we should prefer policies that result in the overrepresentation of historically advantaged groups over policies that result in the overrepresentation of historically marginalized groups, until we find the policy or policies that result in perfect representation. In contrast, others in this thread are comfortable implementing policies that might result in overrepresentation of marginalized groups until we find the policy or policies that result in perfect representation. 

You are obviously entitled to have that opinion, but, speaking solely for myself, I do find it off putting that you have thrown shade at people for not explaining their positions while you have not held yourself to the same standard. If your expectation of others is that they will “directly say that what they're advocating for is overrepresentation of a certain group”, you should be willing to directly say that what you’re advocating for is the continued overrepresentation of white folks (and in particular, white men) in bay street firms, at least temporarily.

I actually don't think we should prefer policies that result in overrepresentation of advantaged groups. I don't agree that every firm's recruitment strategies have this result - I would rather not get into specifics relating to my firm for anonymity reasons, but visible minorities have not been underrepresented in student hiring recently even though we don't use affirmative action, and I know that's the case in several firms. Your assertion is based on a faulty assumption.

And I think I've done way more to explain my position than anyone on the other side of this issue in this thread. I'm not willing to say that I'm advocating for the overrepresentation of white people because I'm explicitly not doing that. 

[KOMODO]

50 minutes ago, Pantalaimon said:

I personally think that the other EDI-informed strategies you've mentioned do absolutely nothing beyond hiring the student class. Whereas MT's approach at least has a shot of fixing the problems upstream of articling.

From my observation, part of the problem with above-average attrition in underrepresented groups is because law turns pretty quickly into a one-on-one or maybe two-to-one learning relationship with partners and maybe a senior/midlevel associate, and all the unconscious bias training in the universe won't prevent partners from picking a student out of the class that they get along with. If you're going to be working 50 hours a week with someone, it had better be someone you like, and I think the science tells us that humans like people that remind us of ourselves. Getting some underrepresented people into the pipeline, through whatever means, should pay dividends because those people will then be more likely to select students for their practice groups that remind them of them, and so on.

The other EDI-informed strategies I've mentioned aren't meant to do anything beyond hiring the student class. I feel that in a perfect world, our recruitment process would naturally result in an articling student class that is representative of the law schools those students come from. Student hiring isn't meant to fix the proportion of black associates or partners.

You're saying that we should make the student class so overrepresentative of visible minorities that it covers the higher attrition rate at more senior levels. But as I've already said, I think that's an issue we should fix at the point where the problem is occurring, not cover it by overcompensating at an earlier stage. I guess you're saying that's not possible. I don't agree.

[Pantalaimon]

10 minutes ago, KOMODO said:

You're saying that we should make the student class so overrepresentative of visible minorities that it covers the higher attrition rate at more senior levels. But as I've already said, I think that's an issue we should fix at the point where the problem is occurring, not cover it by overcompensating at an earlier stage. I guess you're saying that's not possible. I don't agree.

How?

Edit: I should add, I think we did this with women for a time and it seems to have moved the needle. Women are being promoted earlier and faster into the partnership and I have zero problem with that, and I think part of the reason we hang on to female students and associates more than years past is because there are more female partners.

Edited March 1, 2023 by Pantalaimon

[BlockedQuebecois]

14 minutes ago, KOMODO said:

I actually don't think we should prefer policies that result in overrepresentation of advantaged groups. I don't agree that every firm's recruitment strategies have this result - I would rather not get into specifics relating to my firm for anonymity reasons, but visible minorities have not been underrepresented in student hiring recently even though we don't use affirmative action, and I know that's the case in several firms. Your assertion is based on a faulty assumption.

And I think I've done way more to explain my position than anyone on the other side of this issue in this thread. I'm not willing to say that I'm advocating for the overrepresentation of white people because I'm explicitly not doing that. 

I’m going to assume that when you say “visible minorities” have not been underrepresented, you’re actually saying that your student classes are now representative of the population it draws from (not, for example, that you hire white men and then a bunch of women of colour from one specific ethnicity). 

I don’t think anyone in this thread understood you to be saying that your firm now has representative student classes, which is likely why you got the reaction you did. I actually have a hard time squaring some of what you have said with the conclusion that your firm actually has a representative student class, but in any event, it’s obviously great if your firm has achieved that. I hope they are sharing how they did that with the rest of the legal market, because I don’t think that can be said for bay street more generally. 

 

Edited March 1, 2023 by BlockedQuebecois

[Turtles]

So today Davies announced a 1.2M donation to Osgoode to fund a "Davies Fellow" award for a first year (renewable thereafter) who overcame systemic barriers and demonstrates strong potential. 

Credit where credit is due, I really appreciate that approach to reducing barriers. 

[vital_signs]

[ZukoJD]

6 hours ago, vital_signs said:

We're a very agreeable bunch. 

[KOMODO]

I got tied up with work stuff yesterday and wasn't able to answer, here we go...

19 hours ago, Pantalaimon said:

How?

Edit: I should add, I think we did this with women for a time and it seems to have moved the needle. Women are being promoted earlier and faster into the partnership and I have zero problem with that, and I think part of the reason we hang on to female students and associates more than years past is because there are more female partners.

There are plenty of things that can be done to make visible minorities feel more like they belong in big firms as they become more senior. I'm sure I'll miss a bunch, but the first few that come to mind for me are as follows:

• Using more objective measures for promotion and compensation, for example, decreasing the reliance on black box discretionary bonus structures.
• Publishing promotion and compensation statistics that describe min/max/average metrics, including breakdowns by demographic where there are enough individuals in the demo for it to be anonymous (for example, it may be possible to publish by gender or whether someone identifies as a visible minority or not, but may not be possible to publish by racial breakdown as there aren't enough participants to retain anonymity). 
• Appointing people to positions that focus on EDI matters
• Making EDI a priority in the firm's strategic plans and continue evaluating progress
• Offering mentorship specifically for underrepresented groups
• Have a person who students and junior lawyers can report inappropriate behavior to, and be prepared to act on those reports / refuse to tolerate the continuation of that behavior

I'm sure there are many more things firms could be doing too. 

On the promotion of women in law - I am not aware of widespread affirmative action programs for hiring women on Bay Street, or if there were any, when those would have taken place. My sense is that the promotion of women on Bay Street has not been due to explicit affirmative action programs, and instead has been related to other gender-conscious changes in the industry and society generally. And as a woman on Bay Street, I don't personally feel more likely to stay based on the number of women in senior positions at my firm, though I do feel like there are things firms do and things (female and male) partners do that relate to gender issues and make me more or less content staying in the industry.

19 hours ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

I’m going to assume that when you say “visible minorities” have not been underrepresented, you’re actually saying that your student classes are now representative of the population it draws from (not, for example, that you hire white men and then a bunch of women of colour from one specific ethnicity). 

I don’t think anyone in this thread understood you to be saying that your firm now has representative student classes, which is likely why you got the reaction you did. I actually have a hard time squaring some of what you have said with the conclusion that your firm actually has a representative student class, but in any event, it’s obviously great if your firm has achieved that. I hope they are sharing how they did that with the rest of the legal market, because I don’t think that can be said for bay street more generally. 

 

As you're aware, it's not possible for one single firm to have a student class that exactly matches the racial makeup of the law school population, because (i) the number of students hired by the firm may not be large enough and you can't have fractional people, and (ii) as we can see from earlier posts in this thread, nobody even agrees on exactly what %s to use. You're taking what I said and trying to push it slightly further so that it becomes impossible/untrue, which I find pretty frustrating. However, what I have observed, specifically since the interview style changed from what I would call "fit based" to what I would call "attempt at objectivity", is that the representation of visible minorities has increased to a point where historically advantaged students do not seem to be overrepresented in the groups hired most recently. This may mean that in one specific cohort one ethnicity is overrepresented, the next a different ethnicity is overrepresented, etc., but the key for me is the marked change in makeup since the method of evaluation changed. Your previous claim was that any method other than affirmative action results in overrepresentation of white people - I'm saying that from what I have observed recently, that is not true.

As a general note, I'm finding this conversation pretty draining. It seems like people are focused on picking apart my posts without really responding to most of the substantive points I'm raising. I think this is a charged topic and people just feel a certain way, and in many cases aren't prepared to really consider ideas that run counter to their beliefs. We started this discussion by looking at a program that only hires black and indigenous 1L students to the exclusion of all others, and I think that model is problematic for various reasons, which I've tried to explain. It seems like I'm pretty much alone in feeling that way, which is fine, but I don't really have the energy to keep defending and explaining my outlook in this much detail. 

7 hours ago, vital_signs said:

A splice might be in order 😉

[BlockedQuebecois]

1 hour ago, KOMODO said:

Your previous claim was that any method other than affirmative action results in overrepresentation of white people - I'm saying that from what I have observed recently, that is not true.

That was never my claim. As I explained in the post you quoted, I did not understand you to be saying that the policies your firm has put in place result in a representative class (or a class that is over-representative of historically marginalized folks). My statement that you favour policies that result in overrepresentation of historically advantaged groups was a result of my understanding of your prior posts, not a broad statement on the merits of other EDI-increasing policies generally. 

Notably, you still aren't actually making a claim that your student classes (or a running average of your student classes) are representative (or roughly representative). Instead, you say there has been a "marked change in makeup" in the student class. Without specifics, it's impossible to tell what that means.

I take it from your other statements that this means you don't believe your firm is disproportionately hiring white folks, but it's not clear what diversity you have within the “visible minority” category. If your firm hires a roughly representative student class in terms of white folks vs visible minorities, but every single person of colour comes from an ethnic background other than Black or Indigenous, your firm still has work to do and your policies clearly aren't working well enough. And if it's the case that your firm is still failing to hire from specific marginalized groups, we come back to the point that if you want others to specifically say they support policies that might overrepresent marginalized groups, you need to come out and say that you support policies that will underrepresent them.

At the end of the day, I don't think we can take this conversation much further. We're extremely limited by the pseudononymous nature of this forum, and it is not a discussion that can be meaningfully advanced without details. I'm happy to leave the conversation where it's at, and it sounds like you are as well. 

Edited March 2, 2023 by BlockedQuebecois

[Cool_name]

I find Komodo’s point about how any diversity efforts through strict affirmative action are limited by law school admissions interesting and persuasive.
 

Given that there are only X qualified bipoc individuals seeking articling in any given year, how does one firm declaring they are only hiring bipoc articling students do anything to increase diversity in the legal profession? All it would it do is skew the ratio and increase the representation of bipoc lawyers at that firm (or that type of firm if widely adopted amongst a class of firms, like big law) at the expense of other firms or classes of firm.

 

It would also result in a form of brain drain, if widely adopted amongst big law firms. 

[Pantalaimon]

I view this as a pipeline issue, and improving the pipeline at the very start by overrepresenting a certain group has a purpose even if it's unfair to the historically advantaged groups. Komodo put it as "covering attrition" at the later stages, which may be more blunt than I would put it but yes that's essentially what I think we should be doing.

Say you try to target something upstream like who to promote to partner. At that stage it becomes much more unfair and arbitrary to promote X person because they're the only visible minority left standing over Y person who may be equally or more qualified. I'm saying this as a white-passing POC: it would piss me the heck off. Let's face it, as students and juniors we're all quite fungible. Trying to fix the problem later on, when different lawyers actually bring different things to the table, seems way more difficult to get right.

I'd also point out that yes, we're talking about a specific firm only hiring black and indigenous folks for 1L recruit, but from what I understand that firm also hires a ton of students in 2L recruit. I think any emphasis on "to the exclusion of all others" is a bit misplaced - to my mind this is about the merits of under or overrepresentation in the student class as a whole, however the firm in question is accomplishing it.

13 hours ago, Cool_name said:

I find Komodo’s point about how any diversity efforts through strict affirmative action are limited by law school admissions interesting and persuasive.

I'm curious: how would you approach law school admissions, then?

[ccq35]

New thread here: 

 

[Cool_name]

10 hours ago, Pantalaimon said:

I'm curious: how would you approach law school admissions, then?

I don’t like or agree with affirmative actions on a principled basis, so personally I would do nothing, but that is a whole other issue that I wouldn’t get into here, one cannot debate tastes.

If my goal was however to use affirmative action policies to increase the amount of underrepresented minorities in the legal profession, then making x spots in law schools open just to those individuals would be very effective at achieving the goal of increasing the amount of underrepresented minorities in the legal profession.  

Firms (of all sizes) need to hire junior lawyers, the stock of junior lawyers available for them to pick from are determined by who is graduating from law school. 
 

Arguments regarding distortion fall to the wayside as presumably, those groups underrepresented in the legal profession are over represented in less desirable jobs and unemployment generally, so decreasing the over representation would be a feature, not a bug.

 

My understanding of the complaints of disproportionate representation in the legal profession is that there is underrepresentation in all areas of the legal profession, not just big law.

[GoBigOrGoHome]

I have been hanging out on Fishbowl (few Canadian attorneys but a lot of American ones), and what is apparent is that while many URM ethnic/racial minorities are recruited, once they join the firms, they aren't given important files compared to non-URMs. You can easily ensure that your annual incoming cohort is visually diverse, but the key is them sticking around and making their way up the ranks. That is done through sponsorship and support. These diversity initiatives don't mean much to me unless I start to see URMs with intersectional underrepresented identities making partner. 

Also, there is so much talk about ethnic diversity - but no one seems to want to address the elephant in the room, which is big law not being welcoming or supportive of people with disabilities. We see firm sponsorships of student events targeting various ethnic/racial minorities, but where are they when it comes to hosting or sponsoring events for students with disabilities?

I have disabilities—one I was born with, and two acquired. Mine aren't visible, and I can mask them (for the most part). When it comes to declaring diversity, I have been encouraged by some at my law school to hide them when applying for jobs. Fishbowl anonymous chats also encourage not disclosing. 

Latham & Watkins hosted a Disability and Neurodiversity Network event in the fall, but this isn't a widespread practice - especially at Canadian firms. 

I am a diverse candidate for more reasons than my disability, but it bothers me that diversity in Canada is seen as racial/ethnic diversity. I completely understand the need to recruit black and indigenous candidates. We need more in the profession (and at higher levels). On the other side of it, I am concerned that this just ends up being performative and tokenism. Refugees, those who grew up in foster care, first in their family to go to post-secondary, parents had substance-misuse problems and/or grew up in significant poverty, homelessness, etc. get lost and not considered when considering someone to be diverse. To me, this is also diversity and people in these additional situations will have experienced significant challenges in their lives that gives them some level of grit. 

We have a lot of performative concern about diversity in Canada. Take a look at our commercials. After the BLM protests during the pandemic, a disproportionate number of Canadian-origin commercials have someone who is obviously racially African. The companies that seem to get it have people who are obviously indigenous, east asian, southeast asian, south asian, middle eastern, African, etc., in them. If there is a commercial with only one person, I would expect to see more indigenous actors represented, given that we are in Canada - but that is not happening. 

I can't wait to be in a position of power in my career so I can talk about this. Instead of being a lowly 1L right now, that has to hide behind pseudo-anonymity to feel safe speaking out. 

Edited March 5, 2023 by GoBigOrGoHome

[TheAEGIS]

On 3/2/2023 at 10:10 AM, KOMODO said:

I got tied up with work stuff yesterday and wasn't able to answer, here we go...

There are plenty of things that can be done to make visible minorities feel more like they belong in big firms as they become more senior. I'm sure I'll miss a bunch, but the first few that come to mind for me are as follows:

• Using more objective measures for promotion and compensation, for example, decreasing the reliance on black box discretionary bonus structures.
• Publishing promotion and compensation statistics that describe min/max/average metrics, including breakdowns by demographic where there are enough individuals in the demo for it to be anonymous (for example, it may be possible to publish by gender or whether someone identifies as a visible minority or not, but may not be possible to publish by racial breakdown as there aren't enough participants to retain anonymity). 
• Appointing people to positions that focus on EDI matters
• Making EDI a priority in the firm's strategic plans and continue evaluating progress
• Offering mentorship specifically for underrepresented groups
• Have a person who students and junior lawyers can report inappropriate behavior to, and be prepared to act on those reports / refuse to tolerate the continuation of that behavior

I'm sure there are many more things firms could be doing too. 

On the promotion of women in law - I am not aware of widespread affirmative action programs for hiring women on Bay Street, or if there were any, when those would have taken place. My sense is that the promotion of women on Bay Street has not been due to explicit affirmative action programs, and instead has been related to other gender-conscious changes in the industry and society generally. And as a woman on Bay Street, I don't personally feel more likely to stay based on the number of women in senior positions at my firm, though I do feel like there are things firms do and things (female and male) partners do that relate to gender issues and make me more or less content staying in the industry.

As you're aware, it's not possible for one single firm to have a student class that exactly matches the racial makeup of the law school population, because (i) the number of students hired by the firm may not be large enough and you can't have fractional people, and (ii) as we can see from earlier posts in this thread, nobody even agrees on exactly what %s to use. You're taking what I said and trying to push it slightly further so that it becomes impossible/untrue, which I find pretty frustrating. However, what I have observed, specifically since the interview style changed from what I would call "fit based" to what I would call "attempt at objectivity", is that the representation of visible minorities has increased to a point where historically advantaged students do not seem to be overrepresented in the groups hired most recently. This may mean that in one specific cohort one ethnicity is overrepresented, the next a different ethnicity is overrepresented, etc., but the key for me is the marked change in makeup since the method of evaluation changed. Your previous claim was that any method other than affirmative action results in overrepresentation of white people - I'm saying that from what I have observed recently, that is not true.

As a general note, I'm finding this conversation pretty draining. It seems like people are focused on picking apart my posts without really responding to most of the substantive points I'm raising. I think this is a charged topic and people just feel a certain way, and in many cases aren't prepared to really consider ideas that run counter to their beliefs. We started this discussion by looking at a program that only hires black and indigenous 1L students to the exclusion of all others, and I think that model is problematic for various reasons, which I've tried to explain. It seems like I'm pretty much alone in feeling that way, which is fine, but I don't really have the energy to keep defending and explaining my outlook in this much detail. 

A splice might be in order 😉

These are exhausting conversations to have.

For what it's worth, I appreciate your good faith effort to outline your position. I find it's hard to be circumspect, reflective, critical or anything but wholly positive about DEI initiatives when discussing it with well-meaning individuals who are wholly for whatever iteration is being discussed, without your character coming into question in some form or the other. Somehow these things always devolve into dissecting word choice and making unflattering suggestions about your intentions. It always sort of gets away from the intellectual underpinnings of your position. 

It's part of the reason I now largely stay away from these discussions. And I'm a visible minority.  I suppose the silver lining is that so many people want the right outcome - increased diversity and representation in the profession. That matters. It communicates to diverse students/candidates/new lawyers that the profession may actually be a place where they can grow and won't be unfairly maligned/excoriated/dismissed based on factors extraneous to their competency. Hell it might encourage us to try roles we may have previously overlooked. It is certainly the case that minorities sometimes self select out of certain positions because its "risker" due to of a lack of representation in the area. So, here's to fixing that.

But imo it is also concerning that people who are at least in a broad sense on the same side feel exhausted trying to have meaning conversations practical applications of diversity and representation initiatives. I can only imagine how people who are even more skeptical about the whole thing must feel. 

But anyway... that's my $0.02.

[StoneMason]

On 2/28/2023 at 10:00 AM, KOMODO said:

I don't really think it's accurate to describe a program that only hires from two races as "promoting diversity". It may lead to a more visually diverse group of articling students for firm marketing materials, but I feel uneasy with the idea that everyone else is completely excluded. For example, there may be other people of colour who do not identify as black or indigenous who cannot apply and may be equally deserving of consideration. To me, it seems like virtue signaling and I think there are other ways to increase representation, including using more objective/behavioural questions rather than evaluating "fit", and many firms are moving toward that model. Also you reference overrepresentation in the criminal justice system, but I'm not sure why that's relevant to a biglaw firm with no criminal law practice?

This is spot on. I often joke with my non-black POC friends: we get the racism but not the recruitment benefits. This was the same for when I was recruiting for consulting back in undergrad.

I don't think anyone on this thread is against efforts to promote diversity. Just the way it is done often screams "firm marketing material" as opposed to promoting actual diversity. 

Edited April 3, 2023 by StoneMason

[EricaCaine]

These Bay St firms don't care about diversity and inclusion and the stuff they put out is performative. The ones in positions of power in these firms do not want to see any shift in that power and do not care to see any change. Most of them feel like the 'white man' is being attacked and their perceived supremacy and rights being diminished. Yet when you look at the composition of these firms and companies (who is at the top), the compensation, the opportunities and the protections, who  is  benefitting? How many CLE panels, conferences, surveys, and training sessions do these firms need? It's the same b.s. they put it out everywhere but they are not truly vested in addressing the systemic discrimination. Why would white women and white men who benefit from the system want to change the system???? 

[GoBigOrGoHome]

16 hours ago, EricaCaine said:

These Bay St firms don't care about diversity and inclusion and the stuff they put out is performative. The ones in positions of power in these firms do not want to see any shift in that power and do not care to see any change. Most of them feel like the 'white man' is being attacked and their perceived supremacy and rights being diminished. Yet when you look at the composition of these firms and companies (who is at the top), the compensation, the opportunities and the protections, who  is  benefitting? How many CLE panels, conferences, surveys, and training sessions do these firms need? It's the same b.s. they put it out everywhere but they are not truly vested in addressing the systemic discrimination. Why would white women and white men who benefit from the system want to change the system???? 

What happened? 
 

People typically don’t revive months’ old threads with this kind of commentary without anything triggering it. 
 

 

[EricaCaine]

9 hours ago, GoBigOrGoHome said:

What happened? 
 

People typically don’t revive months’ old threads with this kind of commentary without anything triggering it. 
 

 

Thanks for this. It was an incident (one of many) at my firm and friends at other firms shared some stories about similar performative initiatives at their firms. They can't speak openly or truthfully about their experiences for fear of reprisal. So none of these firms will ever face accountability. The Globe and Mail had some articles a few years ago but even those were performative and concerned with sensationalism on the part of the paper and journalists - if there was true dedication to addressing the issue, we would not receive these articles saying the same thing every few years. 
 

 

[BlockedQuebecois]

No offence, but the only way someone could seriously doubt the sincerity of firms’ efforts on this front is if they lack even a rudimentary understanding of what the legal profession used to look like. 

When I was a student applying to firms – which wasn’t that many years ago – it was noteworthy if a firm had anything approaching gender parity or more than a couple of people of colour in their student classes. There were several big firms that more or less exclusively hired white folks (and predominately white men) that graduated from UCC or similar douchey private schools. 

That’s not to say the big firms are perfect – they’re not. They’re big, risk-averse institutions, and so they’re slow to change. But over the last decade, and in particular over the last few years, they’ve invested heavily on DEI in initiatives and those initiatives have paid obvious dividends. To suggest they don’t care is absurd. 

Edited July 3, 2023 by BlockedQuebecois

[EricaCaine]

3 hours ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

No offence, but the only way someone could seriously doubt the sincerity of firms’ efforts on this front is if they lack even a rudimentary understanding of what the legal profession used to look like. 

When I was a student applying to firms – which wasn’t that many years ago – it was noteworthy if a firm had anything approaching gender parity or more than a couple of people of colour in their student classes. There were several big firms that more or less exclusively hired white folks (and predominately white men) that graduated from UCC or similar douchey private schools. 

That’s not to say the big firms are perfect – they’re not. They’re big, risk-averse institutions, and so they’re slow to change. But over the last decade, and in particular over the last few years, they’ve invested heavily on DEI in initiatives and those initiatives have paid obvious dividends. To suggest they don’t care is absurd. 

I am not suggesting that. They don't care. Pointing to these types of initiatives and changes does not change the fact that the initiatives these firms put out are performative. Spending money on surveys, panels, conferences and "training" is not an investment and what obvious dividends are you referring to? Because you see so-called racialized lawyers hired and other members of the "diversity" community being hired does not, by any means, mean there's been significant progress. The fact this is still a conversation should tell you that. From many years on the street and at different law firms, I can share countless stories (especially in recent years), but will not do so for the reasons in my earlier post. People like you are part of the problem - hey, we threw a crumb to these people so there is progress! You lack a rudimentary understanding of institutionalized discrimination and the history of this in Canada and the legal profession. Slow to change etc etc are excuses to maintain a system that benefits the same set of people. 
 

 

[GoBigOrGoHome]

35 minutes ago, EricaCaine said:

I am not suggesting that. They don't care. Pointing to these types of initiatives and changes does not change the fact that the initiatives these firms put out are performative. Spending money on surveys, panels, conferences and "training" is not an investment and what obvious dividends are you referring to? Because you see so-called racialized lawyers hired and other members of the "diversity" community being hired does not, by any means, mean there's been significant progress. The fact this is still a conversation should tell you that. From many years on the street and at different law firms, I can share countless stories (especially in recent years), but will not do so for the reasons in my earlier post. People like you are part of the problem - hey, we threw a crumb to these people so there is progress! You lack a rudimentary understanding of institutionalized discrimination and the history of this in Canada and the legal profession. Slow to change etc etc are excuses to maintain a system that benefits the same set of people. 
 

 

This is my perspective - given my previous workplaces, regional location, background etc...

I think that a lot of the DEI stuff going on right now ends up enacting surface-level change. Not the real change that is needed. 

A lot of the training that I have witnessed is bound to bring some kind of reaction - most of the time one that people cannot be public about. There is a lot of targeting towards the "white man". I view these sorts of statements as similar to "you" statements. When using a "you" statement, people always are on edge and may not actually receive the feedback that you want to share with them. 

The word "privilege" gets thrown out - but people haven't taken the time to explain and help people who didn't attend social science classes about the concept of "unearned privilege". 

In my opinion, these initiatives don't make much of a difference because at the most senior levels, people internally push back. They attend meetings to show that they participated, but they are mentally checked out. 

There has to be a better way to call people in so that they genuinely appreciate the role that they play in what has happened, and want to participate to make things better instead of delegating it out. 

[BlockedQuebecois]

“The fact that there is still a conversation about DEI in the legal profession proves there has been no progress on this issue whatsoever” is nearly as stupid as calling people “so-called racialized lawyers”. 

Seriously, what the fuck. 

[CleanHands]

Gotta love the narcissism of small differences and exhausting, relentless infighting of the political left.

Self-proclaimed "racialized" people gatekeeping what other visible minorities (not talking about Rachel Dolezals here) count as "racialized" and basically implicitly calling other minorities who have been part of positive change token affirmative action hires. That was one step away from calling them "house n*****s," seriously.

Good fucking grief; morons like this are why other morons elect people like Trump purely as a "go fuck yourself" response.

(And I even happen to agree that firms don't really care and that these are pure social washing marketing efforts to deal with a broader cultural shift, but suggesting that minorities they hire aren't really minorities is simply dumb. And ironically this rant ended up aligning more with right-wing anti-affirmative action takes than anything else in its perception of said hires.).

Edited July 4, 2023 by CleanHands