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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]Don’t care about Title VII.[/b] Don’t care about the feelings of the aggrieved white kids, or the whining about systemic blah blah blah.

However, I do need competent, workhorse associates. And I’m tired of being saddled with juniors who need remedial writing courses directly out of law school, four different mentors, and monthly check-in meetings for “supportive feedback” while they’re 40% utilized and doing crap work.

The DEI invincibility cloak is 100% a real thing. It is discussed regularly among partners. If this whiny little MAGA backlash helps us course correct even a little back toward sanity I’ll happily embrace it.   [/quote]

Can you please explain the logic of this to me? Because I see my colleagues seem to feel this way, and I don't get it. Why are we not living up to the level of compliance we would recommend to our clients?[/quote]

My not caring is probably different from most/many others.

But in a nutshell:

1. Not my job. I’m neither an employment lawyer nor the firm GC. I also have no role regarding our compliance with anything other than professional ethics in my own practice. Eye on the ball.

2.  More esoteric, but I’m an old school outlier cranky libertarian who would put freedom of contract above most anything else, so don’t much care about coercive federal statutes. It’s the law of the land, fine; if it came to a vote, sure I’d vote yes someone should make sure we’re able to reasonably take the position we are complying. Which in most any sector means you do roughly what others are doing and avoid any lone wolf practices that attract attention. ([b]One such practice would be to assert Title VII be deployed in defense of white law students.[/b]) [/quote]

Not sure I follow. Are you saying complying with Title VII to make sure you're not favoring one ethnic minority would be deploying it in defense of white law students? And that it would be exposing the firm to liability to comply? [/quote]

Not PP, but my answers-

The way to enforce title VII is through lawsuits, and in order to bring a lawsuit there would need to be an injured party to "defend."  So yes, lawsuits brought against race-based preference in hiring would be deployed in defense of white/non-minority law students.  Policy changes that a firm makes to avoid such a lawsuit is the same thing, one step removed.

To change policy now would indeed be an outlier position (for now) and would attract attention and draw lawsuits, based in part on an implicit admission that past practice was wrong, and increase liability.[/quote]

I was the “nutshell” PP and, yes, this. Though I’d be less concerned about the “implicit admission” re: past practices. The bigger problem is the press and interest groups will burn your law firm to the ground, not to mention you would 100% have a massive internal mutiny.

No firm is going to adopt some kind of affirmative “we don’t favor POC/URM” policy because doing so would expose us to Title VII liability from aggrieved white law students.

Get real. There are fun masturbatory academic exercises and, then, there is running a business that makes hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. We’re engaged in the latter. [/quote]

“Get real”? That’s what firms need to do. The lawsuits are coming. [/quote]

You’re totally delusional. The nutshell poster is 100% correct. You just don’t understand the biglaw business model if you think this is somehow going to become a new front in the culture war. It’s in nobody’s interest. [/quote]

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