David B. Wilkins

Why Are There So Few Black Lawyers in Corporate Law Firms An Institutional Analysis

Introduction ..................................................................................... 496 I. Defining the Problem ................................................................. 501 A. Are Blacks Underrepresented in Corporate Firms? ........ . .. .. .. 502 B. Why Study Institutions and Incentives? .................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506 1. Differential Abilities ...................................................... 506 2. Lack of Interest ............................................................. 508

From 'Separate is Inherently Unequal' to 'Diversity is Good for Business': The Rise of Market-Based Diversity Arguments and the Fate of the Black Corporate Bar

Fifty years after John W. Davis, one of Americas premier corporate lawyers, took on the defense of segregation in Brown v. Board of Education as a pro bono case, corporate America appears to have firmly embraced the mantra that diversity is good for business. In this Article, I examine this surprising turn of events by investigating the rise of market-based diversity arguments in the legal profession itself. Specifically, I examine how black lawyers seeking to integrate corporate law firms have increasingly staked their claim on the contention that diversity is good for the business of law firms and clients. Although it is not surprising that diversity advocates have been drawn to such arguments, I argue that whether these claims will actually produce greater opportunities for black lawyers - and whether the resulting diversity will in turn further Browns other goal of promoting social justice through law for all Americans - depends upon a closer examination of the connection between diversity and business than most proponents of the business case for diversity in the legal profession have been willing to undertake or even to acknowledge. As a preliminary matter, advocates must confront the professions deep commitment to the idea that it is actually homogeneity that best serves firms and clients - a commitment that may be even harder to shake in law firms than it apparently has been in corporate America. At the same time, advocates must also be aware of the danger that market-based diversity arguments will encourage various forms of race-matching, pigeonholing, and moral evasion that can end up harming the cause of diversity by marginalizing and alienating minority lawyers. Ironically, taking note of these complexities may also hold the key to making progress on Browns social justice goals as well. Integrating the corporate bar is a social justice issue of considerable importance. Nevertheless, if bringing diversity to the elite ranks of the American legal profession is going to do more than accentuate the yawning gap between the legal haves and have-nots, then those who come to occupy these positions of power must have normative commitments that both shape and constrain the business interests of their powerful clients. Contrary to the gloomy predictions of diversity advocates who urge abandoning social justice arguments for diversity altogether, however, there are good reasons to believe that black lawyers who maintain a normative understanding of diversity that goes beyond corporate self-interest may, paradoxically, have important advantages in building a credible business case for diversity in their own careers. This paper is part of a symposium on the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v Board of Education held at Harvard Law School on April 15, 2004 in which Richard Ford, Molly McUsic, Frank Michelman, Juan Perea, and Reva Siegel also contributed articles. The Symposium papers were published in Volume 117, Number 5 (March 2004) of the Harvard Law Review and can be obtained from the law reviews web site.

Globalization, Lawyers, and India: Toward a Theoretical Synthesis of Globalization Studies and the Sociology of the Legal Profession

Despite the importance of globalization for Indian lawyers, there have been surprisingly few attempts to integrate the rich scholarship on the processes of globalization with the sociology of the Indian legal profession, and to conceptualize and explain major recent legal developments in India in this context. This article uses three globalization processes – economic globalization, globalization of knowledge and globalization of governance – as lenses for analyzing the Indian legal profession. It argues that understanding these processes and their intersections can help frame a much-needed empirical investigation into the globalization of the legal profession in India, and possibly in other major emerging economies.

Straightjacketing Professionalism: A Comment on Russell

Professor Russells essay1 sounds a much needed cautionary note about the publics characterization of Christopher Darden and Johnnie Cochran both during and after the spectacle of O.J. Simpsons criminal trial. Russell cogently argues that Darden and Cochrans choices, as well as those of other black lawyers confronting similar problems,2 must be evaluated against the backdrop of racism that devalues and constrains the lives of African Ameri-

Globalization, Lawyers, and Emerging Economies: The Case of Brazil

In the 1990s Brazil and other emerging economies went through a major transformation. Closed economies were opened, foreign investment encouraged, and many state-owned enterprises privatized. This “global transformation” had a major impact on the Brazilian legal system. While many parts of the legal system were affected, the corporate law profession changed the most. This sector includes all the institutions and actors that provide legal advice to corporations whether domestic and foreign, public or private. Global transformation brought about major changes in the national political economy, led to a flood of new laws governing corporate activity, and created a demand for new kinds of legal services to help companies manage the new legal environment. This led to rapid growth of the complex of institutions that provide corporate legal services and affected the way lawyering was practiced and organized. Many forces came together to give new shape to the professional identity of lawyers, the structures they work in, and the roles they play. The result was the creation of a new and powerful segment of the legal profession whose activities had profound impacts on the rest of the profession, the legal system, the operation of enterprises (both public and private), state policy and global governance. In this book, we describe the growth of the corporate legal sector in Brazil, and the impact of this development on law-making, legal education, regulation of the legal profession, public interest law, trade policy, and gender roles. The book is part of a larger study of global transformation and its impact on the legal profession carried out by GLEE, the project on Globalization, Lawyers, and Emerging Economies. Based at the Harvard Law School’s Center for the Legal Profession, GLEE is currently studying these developments in Brazil, India and China, with plans to expand the project into Africa and the states of the former Soviet Union. In Brazil, GLEE’s research has been based at the law school of the Fundacao Getulio Vargas (FGV) in Sao Paulo.

An Introduction to Globalization, Lawyers, and Emerging Economies: The Case of India

This book is the first in a series by the Project on Globalization Lawyers and Emerging Economies (GLEE). GLEE examines how globalization is reshaping the market for legal services in important emerging economies such as India, Brazil, and China and how these developments are in turn contributing to the transformation of the political economy in these countries and the reshaping of the global legal services market. In this first book of the GLEE project, we present original empirical research documenting how India’s legal profession is being transformed by the “global shift” that the world’s largest democracy embarked on in 1991 when it began the process of moving from an essentially closed state-controlled economy to one that is still state-led, but also increasingly open to foreign investment and influence. As the book’s 20 empirical studies demonstrate, this shift in India’s economy has produced a new “corporate legal hemisphere” that is playing an increasingly important role in the Indian legal profession, the development of the Indian economy, the elaboration of its administrative state, and in India’s capacity to exert its influence in the new global order. Together with the GLEE project’s current work in Brazil and China, and the forthcoming expansion of the project to the Middle East, Africa, and the CIS states of the former Soviet Union, this book begins an important and largely unexplored debate about how the creation of a “corporate legal hemisphere” in emerging economies is contributing to the broader processes of globalization.

Diversity and talent at the top: Lessons from the boardroom

This Article describes the results from fifty-seven interviews with corporate directors and a limited number of other persons of interest (including institutional investors, executive search professionals, and proxy advisors) regarding their views on corporate board diversity. Diversity challenges and successes in the boardroom make a useful jumping off point for the study of diversity in other professional fields, including law firms, for a number of reasons. First, corporate boardrooms remain remarkably non-diverse, representing a highly visible “old (and, we might add, white) boys’ club.” Second, this club has come under tremendous pressure in recent years, with criticisms ranging from simple business imperatives to social fairness—a debate that is strikingly similar to diversity debates in very dissimilar settings, such as higher education. And finally, the variety of responses around the world to this increased public pressure for boardroom diversity—from legally-mandated quotas in much of Europe to a reliance on market forces in the United States—allows a comparison of many possible approaches to diversity challenges.