Balancing the scales: small firms seek diversity.

It's been said that the letter of the law is black and white while the spirit is gray. Diversity is often thought of as a color issue, too. But it is not just about race. In fact, it involves differences between people such as religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, and disability as well as race. Diversity may also be regional or cultural.

Many small-firm lawyers have recognized this fact and are working to ensure diversity in the legal profession, legal associations, and law schools. One reason is inescapable fact--society has become pluralistic.

"Quite simply, diverse clients want diverse lawyers representing them," said Margaret Lack, a vice president and diversity facilitator with Career Partners, International/The Chesapeake Group, in McLean, Virginia. Lack's group offers diversity management and workshops to area businesses.

Lack said she is careful to distinguish diversity initiatives from affirmative action and equal employment opportunity (EEO) directives. "Affirmative action and EEO are mandated, regulatory, and law-based programs," she said, "while diversity is an initiative organizations have undertaken voluntarily to better reflect their clientele and improve their customer service and internal operations."

According to Lack, diversification works best when it becomes all-inclusive, encompassing every possible difference between people. For example, under Lack's definition, a small midwestern law firm that hires someone from Texas or Maine is diversifying.

Richard Hailey, ATLA's first African American president, agreed with Lack. "The goal of those of us who serve the public should be to define diversity as broadly as possible," said Hailey, who practices in Indianapolis. "We should be creative in our talent search so that we increase our ability to serve the majority community and bring the varied perspectives of minority communities to the problem-solving process that constitutes the practice of law."

Good business sense is also dictating diversification. "Small firms have got to diversify if they are to compete with large firms," said Hugh Campbell, a Bronx, New York, lawyer who chairs ATLA's Minority Caucus. "Diversification is one of the best ways to level the playing field."

Campbell, who is African American, said that diversity affects small firms on a number of levels. "Judges, jurors, clients, and other attorneys all notice which law firms are diverse," he said. "Small-firm lawyers may not realize it, but peers and adversaries both notice who you send into court. And for small firms in small towns, diversity can make you or break you."

Hailey acknowledged that it is difficult to interest minorities in relocating to small communities where they may be the only member of their ethnic or religious group. "The fact that minority recruitment in an all-white setting is difficult does not mean that it should not be attempted," he said. "But we must not kid ourselves, either. The biggest issue surrounding diversity for small-firm lawyers is how to recruit, hire, and retain minority candidates in a nondiscriminatory fashion."

John Norman, an ATLA member who practices law in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, has done this with much success. Some 17 years ago, he hired Emmanuel Edem while he was still a law student. Edem, who is from Nigeria, was attending law school in Oklahoma City at that time. Today, Edem is a partner in the firm.

Norman said that he believes strongly in diversity. "Law firms are service organizations," he said. "You serve people better if you are diverse, and you lead the way by being direct, by being tough, and by setting the example."

Bridgeport, Connecticut, lawyer Angela Robinson concurred adding, "Getting hired in small firms is tough." Robinson, who is African American, is immediate past chair of ATLA's Women Trial Lawyers Caucus. "Small firms do not hire on a regular cycle, and when they do hire, it's from a small pool of applicants, many of whom are known to them," she said.

Campbell believes competition among firms for diverse clients predicates diversification for many small firms. "The advertising and marketing for various client populations can be very tough," he said. "Lawyers who decide to target minorities as clients cannot be under the misimpression that they are the only ones doing so."

According to Campbell, firms wanting to become more diverse should first determine how to market the firm to the clientele they wish to attract. "Before you hire someone, you'd better figure out how to market that person's presence both inside and outside the firm," Campbell said. "And once the firm does the hiring, it's important to maintain an ongoing dialogue with everyone involved, because new people and new markets can inadvertently create new problems." Unanticipated or unaddressed internal strife will usually tear a small firm apart much faster than it would a big firm, he said.

Diverse problems

Unanticipated problems with diversity are nothing new for Nancy Kenner and Sylvester James, who have practiced law together for five years in Kansas City, Missouri. Kenner is white; James is African American.

According to Kenner, more than 50 percent of the firm's clientele is African American. "This is by design," she said. "My law partner and I worked together at a big firm and left to open this practice. The proverbial little guy is our client, and we market ourselves primarily to people of color and women." [For more on this subject, see In the niche, marketing your firm, on page 50.]

Not all the firm's prospective clients have been favorably impressed with its diversity. "A white client came in, took one look at my partner, and announced she could not deal with a black attorney," Kenner recalled. "We were somewhat prepared for that eventuality.

"But on a few occasions, we have met with prospective clients who were African American women who assumed that we were married because we were practicing together," she said. "They let us know they didn't approve of a white woman being with a man of color."

Kenner is matter-of-fact about the impact of these cultural hurdles. But she said, "It is a bit ironic that by diversifying, we still have to deal with the downside of prejudice from a few of our clients."

While small law firms wrestle with the issue of diversity and what it means for them, some minorities practicing in those firms are confronting a kind of stereotyping that their presence may create.

Frank Wu, the first Asian American law professor at Howard University, a historically African American school in Washington, D.C., said he, for one, often feels typecast. "People want to hear about my point of view as an Asian American lawyer," he said. "I hope one day they can transcend my minority status and ask me what I think simply because I am a competent lawyer and teacher."

Minorities in small firms, he said, often face the same problem, and it can be both distracting and frustrating. For example, he said, many minority lawyers receive invitations to speak about minority issues rather than about their legal expertise. On the one hand, Wu said, it's nice to be asked. On the other, it's frustrating to be pigeonholed professionally.

In an article for Asian Week magazine, Wu wrote,

Over time, I'd like to show that I know about more

than Asian Americans .... The problem is that a

spokesperson becomes the stereotype. But I

believe that each of us who has the opportunity to

make an appearance at the podium or on the byline

also has a responsibility to do so. If we do not

speak for ourselves, someone will speak for us--or

worse, we will simply be ignored.

(Providing Some Perspective, Feb. 2 1, 1997, at 9.)

Wu also worries that recently passed antiaffirmative action initiatives in California and Texas and campaigns under way in several other states to eliminate preferences based on race and sex "will dampen the enthusiasm for outreach that remains necessary to achieve diversity within law firms." The Supreme Court has declined to hear two of those cases. (Coalition for Economic Equity v. Wilson, 122 F.3d 692 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 118 S. Ct. 17 (1997); Hopwood v. Texas, 78 F.3d 932 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 116 S. Ct. 2581 (1996).)

Hailey is also concerned. "Unfortunately, we can anticipate that the impact of greater restrictions on affirmative action at the university and law school levels will result in fewer minorities being introduced into A of the learned professions, including law," he said. "And society will suffer because of it."

Diverse future

In spite of recent antiaffirmative action initiatives, Hailey said the future of diversity is assured "as long as those of us who believe that all Americans should be adequately represented in every business and social setting speak out and set an example that champions it. The challenge is great, and it is one that we must not hesitate to embrace."

Robinson said one way to do this is to launch a full-court press for diversity awareness at the state trial lawyer association level.

"We also have to keep championing diversity within ATLA, and we have to reach out to law school students, many of whom do not even consider trial practice as an alternative--mostly because no one has told them it exists," Robinson said. "That responsibility is ours and ours alone. Outreach really begins with us."