Last week I attended a function entitled, “Supporting Diversity in Government Contracting of Outside Legal Services: Challenges and Opportunities” held at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
Participants on the various afternoon panels included Richard Meade, Chief Legal Officer of Prudential Financial Inc., and Paul Cellupica, Chief Counsel of Securities Regulation and Corporate Services at MetLife, Inc. Other panelists included members of MWBE law firms, minority partners of majority firms and Counsel from various state entities.
All of the sessions focused on different strategies for supporting and bringing diversity into the usage of outside legal services in the government. I sat through the afternoon session thinking that as far as diversity and law is concerned, the progress has been very slow. It was quite clear that commitment and vision has to come from the upper echelons of leadership in law firms, GCs in corporations and all levels of government. Otherwise, supporting diversity efforts was going to be yet another case of talking the talk but not walking the walk.
Interestingly enough that is the question that often comes to mind when I attend diversity networking events. I see all of the big firms sponsoring the event but rarely do the decision makers attend.
The audience and panelists had several lively exchanges about problems, solutions and concerns, in particular when one of the panelists suggested that times may be tough but folks have to pull themselves up. A fellow panelist, Veta Richardson, Executive director of MCCA pointed out that diversity is not just about picking yourself up by the bootstraps. She stated pulling yourself up is a given but without institutional changes in the systems pulling your socks up is not enough and is really passing the buck.
What was ironic about this event was that after 3 hours of different plenary sessions discussing the need to be more inclusive of minorities and women; I was talking to an attorney and was interrupted by two attorneys from "big law," a person of color and his superior, a white man, who proceeded to introduce themselves to this particular attorney while completely ignoring me. I was absolutely stunned by this occurrence. To be candid, I’m not used to being ignored and I wasn't sure whether this was bad manners or if I was 'invisible' to the big law attorneys.
In a bit of shock and not wanting to stir the pot I recounted what happened to Veta. Her response to this occurrence was that “what they did was to basically cut you out and at the very least it was thoughtless behavior. To me, the point is that we must be a lot more thoughtful and purposeful about seeking to include one another. Their actions suggest they missed the whole point of the afternoon. The Honorable David Patterson, the first man of color to govern the state of New York, did not miss the point when he initiated this effort to open opportunities for minorities to bid on the state’s legal work by introducing a little more competition into the old, established processes. That’s why these men were invited, but they brushed you, a fellow minority, aside for reasons only they can explain, but in my opinion any explanation they might offer rings hollow.”
Well reader, I'll let you be the judge. I would love to hear your thoughts on what happened and any comments you may have.
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