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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This thread is interesting.

I am a POC who started my career in Big Law.  At the time, there was only one POC  partner and he wielded significant power because he had been high up at DOJ and was a tremendous rainmaker.  While I was there, I was told a number of negative things about my ability and my future – one partner was especially nasty.  It was demoralizing.  Well POC partner told me that he learned early on that POC cannot make partner like others make partner.  There are too many minefields for most associates, but especially women and POC, to come up through the ranks.  We need to do some time in BigLaw, go elsewhere (government or in-house), forge relationships and come back with our books in tow.   Well, I did my time there and moved on.  I am now the Dep GC at a medium/large company and I control a $30 million outside counsel budget – nothing huge but enough to get some attention from Big Law partners. My internal clients are diverse and very smart – a legal team that is not diverse would not be an easy sell.

I do not “insist” on diversity with respect to my outside counsel but I do ask if I do not see any.  If I get a BS answer, it is likely that the firm will not get my business.  Having been where I have been and working with diverse clients, I KNOW that the definition of “qualified” is not a static definition.  I also know that there are a lot of qualified lawyers who do not fit the Big Law mold. 
[/quote]

Good for you.  (Another POC attorney, in-house here).[/quote]

I wish this message was clearer to me when I was a younger black big law associate. I wouldn't have taken the criticism so hard and blamed myself. I did everything I could to make it work, billed tons of hours, wrote briefs, was the first in my class to take a deposition for a paying client, but I got the bad review during my 4th year that I "lacked attention to detail" and would need to find another job. No negative feedback from the partners and my firm had a policy that we couldn't read the reviews because the partners wouldn't be candid. It was a big firm in Chicago.

It was the only thing I've ever "failed" at achieving. To law school, law review, etc. Ironically, it was for the best, because like y'all, I went into the government (clerking then SEC), worked my way up, and am an in-house attorney who's doing incredibly well (7 years in house).

It was a difficult few years and it took time to get my confidence back. I'll never forget during my last day I demanded and made copies of my reviews. They were full of things I've never heard about, events I was never involved in...just lies. I didn't fight it, but left, clerked, and realized that even if I did something, the negative attention would be career suicide and firms aren't dumb...there's plenty of ways to meet their burden to beat off a discrimination complaint through endless papering of files.

I wish we were more honest. [/quote]

Thanks so much for posting this!  I'm the PP black female mom in big law and really needed this.  I'm in the midst of the storm right now and am glad to hear that you landed very well.  I'm looking for my next opportunity now (in-house or gov) and this gives me hope. [/quote]

I am the first PP and the very first thing you need to realize is that [b]whatever the firm is putting you through is a reflection on that firm and not your ability, potential or future [/b]as a lawyer. You need to look in the mirror every single day and repeat that affirmation every single day.  The other thing you need to is [b]embrace (yes, embrace) the fact that the particular firm is not the place for you - you do not fit the firm and the firm does not fit you.[/b]  That frees you up to start planning the next step.  [b]That was the hardest thing for me to understand.  I thought I was a failure.  Yet a big part of the problem was the firm being clueless about how to use my strengths. Once I moved on to a place that was all about identifying strengths and allowing me to position myself to succeed, I saw how woeful the firm was on the professional development front. [/b] [/quote]

I'm not in big law, but I am a female POC, and a mother working in Finance in corporate America, and I find myself facing similar issues to what I see on this thread, especially the lack of professional development opportunities and constructive feedback. I especially appreciate the bolded parts above. It is hard not to internalize and think you are a failure, when the reality is that the system we operate is what fails us.

Thank you PPs for being candid and open about the bullshit that women and POC are dealing with in professional workplaces right now in America. It's good to know I'm not the only one experiencing this stuff, and that it's not "all in my head."[/quote]

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