THE RECORD - New York City Bar Association

M I N O R I T Y R E P R E S E N T A T I O N A N D R E T E N T I O N
ing on the admission of new partners that their ability to make necessarily
subjective and individual judgments on the basis of non-discriminatory
qualifications and criteria is essential to their future success and ultimate
survival. Anything that leads to surrendering those judgments to externallyimposed
numerical goals is seen as a serious threat, and unacceptable.
It was also suggested that the undertaking in Section II(d) of the
Statement, to admit or invite to partnership or senior corporate counsel
Minority lawyers who meet the “requisite criteria” of the law form or
corporate legal department, should instead refer to Minority lawyers who
are “qualified” for such positions. While undoubtedly all of the Signatories
would like to admit all “qualified” Minorities as partners or senior
corporate counsel, such a formulation of the goal ignores the myriad
other factors (such as overall and specific practice area needs, economic
conditions, etc.) that must be considered in making such decisions. As a
consequence, reaching a consensus to change the Statement to impose a
more rigidly formulated commitment to admit Minority partners is, at
least at present, difficult if not impossible.
As noted above, it is still too early to determine the impact of the
Statement on the admission of Minority lawyers as partners, given the
length of the partnership track at most firms that are Signatories. In lieu
of any change in the specific wording of the Signatories’ commitments at
this time, the Committee has opted to give greater emphasis to the importance
of careful attention to the committed steps enumerated in Section
IV of the Statement in furtherance of the goal of increasing the retention
and promotion rates for Minority lawyers. It continues to be the Committee’s
belief that effective retention and training programs for Minority lawyers
will in time result in increased Minority participation at all levels of law
firms and corporate legal departments.
The Committee will continue to direct its attention to achieving this
goal.
5. The Committee also wishes to emphasize the importance of increasing
the participation of corporate law departments as signatories to
the Statement of Goals. Corporate law departments can play a key role in
supporting and encouraging the profession to achieve the objectives of the
Goals; a number of corporations currently request their outside law firms
to assign minority lawyers to their matters. This encouragement provides
significant additional incentive for law firms to recruit, retain and promote
minorities. As corporate law departments improve their own recruitment, retention
and promotion of minority attorneys, the Committee believes it appropriate
for them to encourage their outside counsel do the same.
T H E R E C O R D
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