Like a diverse student body, a diverse work force is worth seeking

THE DIVERSITY OF YOUR LAW school's student body contributes to your educational experience. Once you're a lawyer, the diversity of your employer's staff will contribute to your professional experience.

Last year a Gallup poll sponsored by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University found that 90 percent of Harvard and University of Michigan law students said classroom diversity gave them a better educational experience.

Imagine how it would affect your educational experience if law school enrollment consisted almost entirely of white men. That was true in the lifetimes of many lawyers practicing today.

Today, about half of law students are women, roughly proportional to their percentage in the adult population. Fair-minded people would acknowledge that enrolling women in proportion to their numbers is better for all concerned than the old system where law schools were almost exclusively a male preserve.

But, unfortunately, the old system still prevails where people of color are concerned. People of color make up 25 percent of the adult population-expected to climb to 50 percent within the next few decades-yet make up only about 14 percent of law students. If diversity contributes to a better educational experience, many law students are not having as good an experience as they could.

Although women have made better progress in the profession than have other underrepresented groups, it's still too early for the legal profession to congratulate itself that women have reached parity with men. According to the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), only about 23 percent of licensed attorneys are women. And, again, the situation is more disparate where people of color are concerned. Only 6 percent of licensed attorneys are people of color.

As you look beyond law school to finding a job, you would do well to evaluate prospective employers in terms of how fairly they treat their lawyers. How law firms treat women, people of color, and other minorities tells you a lot about firm culture and whether you are apt to feel valued and respected there.

Many women in law firms report that the complex, challenging, and high-profile cases still disproportionately go to men. In a NALP Foundation study called Pathways to Partnership, a woman partner in a law firm notes a related disparity: "I think women tend to be put more frequently on associate committees, recruiting and legal assistance committees rather than the 'hard' committees that involve dollars and cents, accounting for the firm, finance, that kind of thing."

Mentoring opportunities are another area in which the opportunities for white men seem superior to those for women and people of color. This isn't necessarily because of an intent to discriminate. A male partner at a firm observed in that same study, "The partners-maybe because they're all men-go to lunch together. If they invite the associates, it tends to be on a friend basis. I have yet to see a male partner go to lunch with one of the women associates." The opportunity for client contact and development is another area in which partners and associates report that firms support men over women.

Attrition is an issue generally in the profession, but again it is instructive to compare attrition for women and people of color to attrition statistics generally. The NALP Foundation study found across the board that attrition of associates is frequent and early. In the first year, 9.2 percent of associates leave. Within two years, 26.5 percent leave. Within three years, 43 percent leave. The attrition of women is 10.9 percent by the end of the first year, 28.7 percent by the end of the second year, 45.2 percent by the end of the third year, and 66.7 percent by the end of the fifth year. The attrition of people of color is 11.5 percent by the end of the first year, 32.2 percent by the end of the second year, 54 percent by the end of the third year, and 73.9 percent by the end of the fifth year.

However intractable the inequalities confronting women and people of color may seem to be at times, the forces behind the inequalities confronting gays and lesbians seem even more unrelenting. In his 1998 book, One Nation, After All, Boston University sociologist Alan Wolfe concludes that "the new middle-class morality-with the conspicuous exception of its view of homosexuality-is more accommodating, pluralistic, tolerant, and expansive than either side has recognized." It's important to realize that gays and lesbians are not necessarily benefiting as much as other minorities from the societal trend toward more pluralistic, tolerant, and expansive views.

Law students, who may be used to a relatively benign law school environment, may find it less hospitable in law practice. If you're interested in working in a diverse and hospitable environment, you need to look at prospective employers with an eye toward how hospitable they're apt to be.

Increasingly, law students tell me they do just that. Last fall, for instance, while I was conducting on-campus interviews, an applicant told me she reviewed the NALP forms of the employers conducting interviews at her school and found that only six of 48 employers reported they had openly gay or lesbian lawyers. Applicants don't express concern for gays and lesbians as a tactic calculated to ingratiate themselves with employers, so I believe that her interest in working in a diverse environment is not only genuine, but very important to her.

Everyone-men, women, majority, and minority-needs to evaluate how they think prospective employers will treat them. How does the employer make assignments? Does everyone enjoy equal access to desirable cases? How do mentoring opportunities arise? What kind of client contacts are allowed? What is the attrition rate?

You're not going to get meaningful answers if you rely on asking employers, who aren't apt to be candid about their firms' weaknesses. You'll need to do more sophisticated research. Start in your school's career services office. Find out whether the staff knows anything about the employers you're considering. Ask whether there are any alumni you can call who have worked for the employers. Calls to former members of the firm can yield valuable information you probably wouldn't be able to get any other way.

Glean clues about a firm's culture by looking at its demographics. What percentage of women and people of color does the employer have? Does the firm have people with disabilities and employees who are openly gay? Check out directories that list the firm. Your career services office has NALP's Directory of Legal Employers. It contains information on more than 1,200 law firms, public interest organizations, government agencies, and corporations. You can also find it online through Lexis-Nexis or buy it on CD-ROM directly from NALP for $19.95 (call 202-667-1666).

Not too long ago, many decision makers believed that the emphasis on diversity was a flavor-of-the-month program; they thought they could wait it out and it would fall by the wayside. In the early '90s I was asked by a hiring lawyer for another employer, "When do you think this emphasis on diversity will run its course?" I remember thinking, this fellow just doesn't get it. Today, though he's still with the same employer, he hasn't been on the hiring committee in years. That employer now has a much more diverse work force.

Things change, and as the climate has changed for the better for women in the law, the climate is changing for the better, albeit more slowly, with respect to other underrepresented lawyers. I'm encouraged because I see so many students whose values include a strong commitment to diversity, and whose decisions about where to work are based on those values.

Just as your law school's diversity contributes to your educational experience, as a lawyer, your employer's diversity will contribute to your professional experience. That has implications for which employer you ought to choose. And it suggests we would all be better served if the legal profession were more representative of society at large.