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Vote on Desiree Davidson's Story
Were they afraid we were planning a coup d'etat?
I spent my first summer during Columbia Law School at a firm in Philadelphia described as one of the best places in the city for black lawyers. I believed that if there was any place where I would have an equal chance at opportunities, be treated fairly and succeed, this would be it. There were three black female summer associates out of sixty that year but any time all three of us were in an office talking, one of the partners would knock on the door to see how we were doing. It happened too often to be a coincidence that sometimes we would purposely agree to meet in so-and-so's office to test our theory that we were being monitored. Like clock work, ten minutes after we would get together a partner would stop by.
Sabina Clark's Experiences
The first law firm I left specialized in environmental law and had about 40 to 50 attorneys. I left the firm because I wasn't getting the training I wanted. I wasn't getting the experience I needed. When I started comparing notes with people who graduated with me from law school and with associates at the firm, I realized the kind of assignments I was getting were completely different.
At one point I became gun shy about going to my supervisor. One time I had done something and she raised her voice and said to me, "IF YOU HAVE A QUESTION, WHY DON'T YOU COME TO ME WITH YOUR QUESTIONS?" At this point, I had been through so much that I had hired a coach to deal with it.
Sometimes somebody would get the African-American women in the office confused, and I would get another African-American woman's documents delivered to me. I'd be walking down the hall and someone would say, "Oh Tamika, I put those documents on your chair." I'm not Tamika, she's another African American female attorney.
I wanted to get more experience than my previous firm was giving me so I picked the biggest, baddest New York firm I could find. It's an environment where the work is so expensive and the clients expect so much and the demands are so high that there isn't time for anyone to be concerned with whether you are black, white or pin-striped or a woman.
One thing that was different at the second firm I joined is that the partner I worked with, my boss, was an African-American man. In addition to about 35 associate attorneys in the office, there were two black partners and four African-American female associates.
Having other African-Americans to work with there would be a different dynamic. Something as simple as the attorney's lunch that would happen every Friday. We would experiment to see how we could shift the environment.
I remember one conversation I had with an African-American partner about Venus and Serena Williams. The partner knew about their history and how they had grown up in Compton and how it must have been for them and their dad.
It wasn't news to anyone that my supervisor was vicious. I would get cut off when I tried to talk about it because nobody wanted to deal with it. I think they let her stay because of money. She is really smart.
In my current job, one of the partners took me to a business meeting just to get more black people there. Because of that, another attorney said to me, "Well, yeah, you know this particular partner really likes working with you, really likes toting you around.
I'm going to put together a proposal because I realize that we don't have a diversity policy at this firm. Let's take a look at what is going on. At this firm the last three associates that have left have been associates of color.