blog 29

Nationally, only 4 percent of law firm partners are minorities; even fewer are minority women. The NPR article discussed a recent study that was done by the American Bar Association and looked into cases of discrimination, exclusion, harassment and neglect that caused minority women to leave law firms. Of the women that they spoke to 49% said they had been the victim of demeaning comments or other types of harassment. Within this article we saw example such as the Asian partner that was embarrassed and humiliated in front of a client when called into the managing partners office and he insisted that she speak Korean to a client because she was also Korean. Another case involved a women of Indian descent who would receive such comments as you have tough skin, are you going to scalp me or can I call you Pocahontas and yet when she pointed out that these comments where inappropriate it was her that was accused of causing tension within the work place which ultimately lead to her leaving the firm. One woman compared herself to an exotic animal that was on display she was involved in speaking to upcoming students of color and plastered on many advertisements but when it came to actually being involved and representing the law firm it was her minority status they were most proud and her capable abilities to do the job in which she was hired to do were not recognized or used to their full potential. In a profession where it is your day to day job to upload and represent the law to the best of your abilities it amazes me that this does not hold true within the walls of their own firm. Equality and justice things that you read about and study in school and yet there are those certain individuals who just don’t get it or more importantly “don’t want to get it” .