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Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
I want to weigh in with some thoughts on "being cultivated" because it's something I've been thinking about and working on for a long time. I've tried to cultivate a lot of diverse associates over the years, as a partner at three different firms and with varying degrees of success, and one really big issue for me is that there are a lot of barriers put up when you are mentoring someone of color or a woman that are not there when mentoring white men. If I give some constructive criticism to a woman or minority (especially a minority who is black), something that is important for their development, it gets picked up and repeated over and over again. I'm reminded I said they needed to be more detail oriented, or needed to slow down a bit and think harder before they jump in, and I'm sometimes reminded of that for years after making the comment. As a result I've become very guarded in my reviews. On the other hand, if I say something positive, it gets forgotten quickly by many people unless I repeat it constantly. Also, minority candidates get criticized by people they don't work for much more than white candidates. Criticize someone who is black, just a little, and some old white guy in the room will give you an Amen, even if he's barely nodded hello to them.
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It is absolutely vital to have women, LGBT, and people of color in the room when these high-level conversations are taking place. We see the bullshit as it is being applied and hopefully are secure enough at the firm to call it out.
I would recommend delivering constructive criticism to associates directly and minimizing such criticism at those review meetings. I'm sure you've read the brief experiment white paper from Nextions. Confirmation bias is real, as you've just confirmed.
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Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
I can quantify some of this. I had a top notch black associate who was bringing in north of $100K as a fifth year and bringing it in from top of the line clients with huge growth potential. A star. His work generation was regularly "put in context" in reviews. Things like people saying, Well, it's a start, but we can't tell yet if he can expand the relationships, he needs to defer more to partners brought in and they should run the matters, etc. etc. On the other hand, I regularly see more senior associates bringing in their first $20K matter getting all kinds of praise, credit and mentoring, even when it is commodity work sent in by some friend of the family. (This particular guy has since been recruited from me by a top 20 national firm, but I remain bitter.)
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Yes. This kind of achievement is seen as a fluke by so many. I don't know how many times I've heard, "Wow, you're a partner? You don't look like a partner." And this isn't from non-lawyers. I brought in a $700k matter for another partner at my last firm soon before I left. That shit wasn't even mentioned in my comp conversation. Pure fluke in their eyes.
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Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
All this has led me to believe that finding ways to create consistent standards is very important to the cultivation effort. I know we've also got to change the attitudes of some white men, especially some of the liberals who should know better, but in the meantime imposing standards that holds every mediocre white boy to the same standards the old white guys hold women and non-white candidates to seems to be one way to even the playing field.
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Yes. I would hope that that is part of the bare minimum efforts that firms need to undertake.
TM
