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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.
Don't ask me what your diversity policy should be.
- Workplace Unfairness
- Female
- African-American
- Law Firm
- Considering Leaving
- Non-Profit
- Clients
- Diversity Policy
- Mentors
As a summer associate, I was assigned a partner-mentor and one afternoon, I sat in on a client conference call with her. We were discussing the various employees in the client's office and there was one person the client had avoided answering questions about. Finally, the client said, "Well, we just had to hire him. He's our little affirmative action hire. We don't really do much with him." Obviously the client could not tell that I was black over the phone. My partner-mentor was stunned but didn't say anything. I was obviously uncomfortable. After the meeting, my partner-mentor asked me, "How do you think I should have handled that?" What an odd question for a partner to ask a summer associate. The firm should have had a policy for how to deal with clients' racist comments.