Went to a CLE today, "Why Diversity Matters", largely to pick up that bloody civility credit for my CLE requirements. On the panel was Cecelia Romero, who is now a U.S. Magistrate but who 14 years ago was an associate at Holland & Hart when I was a contract attorney there. The firm was doing a lot of hand-wringing about why they weren't retaining minority and women associates, but it really wasn't doing anything about it. There were four of us contracted on this project, and at the end of the contract, they ostensibly interviewed us for permanent positions. I say "ostensibly" because we all knew they were only hiring one of us and we all knew which one she was (The woman they hired is long gone out of there, BTW.).
I interviewed with the HR manager (who is also long gone out of there) and decided that, rather than wholly wasting my interview time, I would tell her why I thought they had a problem with associate retention. First, if you are from a disadvantaged background, you have a real shortage of contacts who will allow you to build the book of business a firm requires you to have (voice of experience here). Second, if you're LDS, which the overwhelming majority of people in Utah are, and you are a young associate at a firm, you are in a singles ward or a young marrieds ward, socializing almost exclusively with people of your own age and social status, not executive types who make attorney hiring decisions for the kind of corporations firms want as clients. So your success as an associate boils down to this: Without some exceptional input (a genius-level mind or an extraordinary mentor who will help you get that book of business), you had better have been born to the right parents, ones who socialize with the kinds of people who will channel meaningful work your way. Without that, all the voyage of your career is bound in shallows and miseries.
I got into the University of Michigan Law School on affirmative action. Now you may ask, "How did you, Whitey McMalerson, get in on affirmative action," but Michigan's system was based on general diversity and not exclusively on race or gender. They decided they needed a token hick to provide a diverse experience for all those suburban preppies, and I was it. They didn't bother to tell me that, though. No, I had to figure out for myself that I wasn't supposed to go anywhere important after I graduated; I was just supposed to go back to Turdville and practice Turdville law for the rest of my life. I had trouble figuring this out for two reasons. First, it made no sense, at least not to anyone in any way familiar with Turdville. You could make a far better living in Turdville doing plumbing and electric than law, and you wouldn't have to worry about student loans. Second, a significant disadvantage to being a white male is an underdeveloped ability to recognize when you're being patronized. You think that, at least relative to other white males, you're competing and winning on merit. Which is bullshit. But it was my third year before I even got an inkling of what was going on and years before I got it figured out. I can be slow.
So. If you're going to bring people from atypical backgrounds on board, you should do one of two things: 1) Be honest with them up front that you're just going to use them for a few years and then boot them, or 2) help them overcome the systemic barriers they have to satisfying your expectations. Because if all you're going to do is throw a kid from Turdville or the inner city in to sink or swim against a bunch of "peers" who grew up in Grosse Pointe Shores and went to Choate and then Princeton and then Yale and whose parents are feeding them a steady stream of corporate business courtesy their country club circle, you are a cruel, ignorant shit.
