Browse Stories
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.
An honest review
- Workplace Unfairness
- Female
- African-American
- Law Firm
- Considering Leaving
- Coaching
- Double Standards
- Personal Response
- Reviews
- Tip
The review is always the first thing. People are scared to talk to you and be honest with you. For example, I teach legal writing and one of my students was a clerk at a large law firm. Right before she left to study for the bar she got a really bad review. She tries to deal with the review in a letter, so I take a look at it for her. One thing I notice is that she is a little too apologetic. Someone once told me that women shouldn't apologize. You can be accountable and say that you made a mistake. But you don't need to apologize for every one of your mistakes. So the feedback I gave to her is that she was giving these people too much power. I told her she didn't need to do that. She didn't need to hold on for dear life; instead, she needed to have some conversations about inconsistencies, not only the inconsistency of the review with her performance, but the inconsistencies in the review itself. For example, there were boxes on the review where the supervisor was to a check box from 1 through 5, but both 2 and 3 were checked. So was she doing this or was she doing that? She had the conversation and she turned out okay. But the point is that this happens all the time, especially in reviews. The review process is generally what gets you.