Raising the Bar: Diversifying Big Law - Hardcover

Adegbile, Debo; Davis, Lisa; Hernández, Damaris; Wells, Ted

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1620974967 ISBN 13: 9781620974964

Publisher: The New Press, 2019

Synopsis

A first-of-its-kind book of honest reflections, straight talk, and essential advice about life at big law firms for people of color

What do young people of color aspiring to careers in the law need to know about life at big law firms? What do law schools need to do to prepare them? What do the firms themselves need to do to attract, retain, and promote them?

In Raising the Bar, four partners of color from leading law firms engage in a no-holds-barred conversation about what it takes to make it in big law using their own journeys to the top to discuss how law firms can do a better job of attracting and holding on to a more diverse set of young attorneys.

They also offer advice to the attorneys themselves on how to succeed in a culture that has long excluded them, including finding mentors among those who don’t look like you, building a portable toolkit of skills, establishing key connections outside the firm, and staying “true to you,” even as young associates of color navigate the foreign terrain of insular firm culture.

The book also includes a section of concrete advice from diversity coordinators at several top law firms.

About this title

About the Author:

Debo P. Adegbile is a partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr and co-chair of the firm’s Anti-Discrimination Practice. He lives in New York.
Lisa Davis is a partner in the Entertainment Group at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz. She lives in New York.
Damaris Hernández is the first Latina partner in Cravath, Swaine & Moore’s litigation department. She lives in New York.
Ted Wells is a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and co-chair of the firm’s litigation department. He lives in New York.
Anthony C. Thompson is a professor and faculty director of the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at New York University School of Law. He is the author of Releasing Prisoners, Redeeming Communities and Dangerous Leaders, and a co-author, with Sherrilyn Ifill, Loretta Lynch, and Bryan Stevenson, of A Perilous Path. He lives in New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: The New Press
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1620974967
• ISBN 13: 9781620974964
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208
• Editor: Thompson Anthony C.