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| press > reports of the bba > facing the grail report > appendix c | |
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Report of the Boston Bar Association
Task Force on APPENDIX C DISCUSSION VIGNETTES ANDREA THOMPSON'S STORY Andrea Thompson was a black, third year law student at a prestigious law school. She had grown up in a working class family in Philadelphia. There had never been a lawyer or doctor in her family. She was the first. As a political science major from an Ivy League college, she had decided to go to law school to become an effective advocate for the disenfranchised and dispossessed, to advocate for the civil rights of others. She did not have a clear vision about how to accomplish this, but she thought that law would be her best vehicle. In her second year of law school, she married Kevin, a medical student. They estimated that their combined indebtedness after graduation would be $150,000. They could expect no financial assistance from their families. Despite her initial reasons for pursuing a legal career, Andrea decided to join a very large corporate law firm in Boston, where her husband would do his medical residency. Andrea's decision was mostly a financial one. For the next several years, her husband's salary would be very low. Boston would be an expensive city to live in and she would have to begin paying her school loans. In addition, she felt responsible for helping to provide for her mother who was on a fixed income, as well as other family members who were in financial distress. Her classroom and clinical experiences in law school made her question her whole idea of using the law as a tool for improving people's lives. In her housing clinic, the best she was able to do was to delay the inevitable eviction. It was clear to her that nothing she did there addressed the root causes of her clients' predicaments. She hoped that, with a well-known law firm behind her, she could combine the skills and contacts that she would develop with her personal finances and the firm's resources to help poor and under-served communities. Andrea held very little hope of making partner at the firm. There would be thirty associates in her class. It was obvious from the partnership structure that most of those were not expected to still be at the firm when partnership decisions were made. But Andrea had done the impossible before. She reasoned that she was a hard worker and had great academic and personal skills. She would worry about the "baby thing" later and she would try to ignore the fact that there was only one black senior associate who had recently become junior partner, one mid-level associate who was Latino, and a few junior associates of color in the firm. After all, Andrea thought, how different could a firm be from the predominately white schools that she had attended all her life and in which she had always managed do well? Having made up her mind, Andrea decided to accept the firm's invitation to a cocktail reception at a private club in Boston. At the party, she avoided the two partners who had made racially insensitive remarks to her during her interviews and she was overly attentive to the black waiters and bus boys who were serving them. Andrea decided to seek out the firm's one black junior partner, Darren Matthews, to congratulate him on his recent success. She had barely seen or spoken to him during the summer, even though he had been one of her assigned mentors. He never returned her telephone calls and rarely attended the firm's summer events. At first, she thought that he was purposely trying to avoid her, but her other summer mentor told her that he was a nice guy and well-respected. However, the past year or so, he had been under a great deal of pressure working on an incredibly difficult case. He was also due to be considered for equity partner. When she finally found him at the cocktail party, Darren was alone at a bar located on the outside patio. She shook his hand and offered her heartfelt congratulations. He had accomplished something very few black people had. He thanked her, but he seemed sad and somewhat aloof. Andrea, hoping to raise his spirits, told him how proud she was of him and that his success gave her hope. Her comments seemed to have the opposite effect of what she intended. Darren looked at her and then hung his head. After some persistence, Andrea was able to convince Darren to tell her what was bothering him. He admitted to Andrea that there was a part of him that was proud of what he had accomplished, but more and more he was feeling that he had made a big mistake. He was miserable; he felt alone, ashamed and trapped. And most of all, he explained, he was tired. He was tired of never seeing his wife and kids. Last month he had missed his daughter's birthday. He loved his wife, but he was sure that his marriage was failing. Sadly, he was either too busy or too afraid to ask. He did know that his wife felt that she was being asked to sacrifice too much for his job. Her own career was suffering because she had to take primary responsibility for their two kids. She had managed to work out a part-time schedule with her boss, but she was always working extra hours at home in between meals and baths, after bedtimes, and on the weekends. They had hired help, but it seemed that his wife was just working to pay the baby sitter. She told Darren that she felt wholly inadequate as both a mother and a professional. He was tired of never seeing his folks. He hadn't been home in a year and his parents were getting older. His father had triple bypass surgery a couple of years before. At that time, the partner with whom Darren was preparing for a big trial was upset when Darren decided to spend a few days with his father after the surgery. As a result, Darren spent much of his time on the telephone with the client and the partner, reviewing and revising documents as he sat by his father's beside. His mother had been disgusted by the whole scene and told him so. His work did not seem as meaningful or exciting as it once
had. The intellectual stimulation was not enough. His clients were nice
enough people, but it seemed that his job was to make rich people richer.
And he was tired of feeling disconnected from his community. The demands
of his job and family meant that he had no time to be involved in community
concerns. He was never able to participate in meetings of the minority
bar associations. He felt ashamed. He was tired of feeling alone and having to swallow the racially insensitive slights of his clients and colleagues. The incidents were often small and usually subtle, but they were numerous enough so that he knew he was not imagining them. It was as much about what they did say or did do as what they did not do. There were the conversations that abruptly stopped when he came into the lunchroom; the partners' houses that he was never invited to; the arm of the senior partner that never wrapped around his shoulder pulling him close to whisper a warm congratulations or even to tell a silly joke. More blatant prejudice came from the outside world: being continually questioned by building security when he first started working weekends at the firm; being mistaken for support staff by visiting clients, despite his attire; being humiliated in front of his clients by judges who grilled him in court about where he went to law school and when he passed the bar; being denied a handshake that his colleagues had received from opposing counsel. Darren told Andrea that he was not even sure what the partners thought of him and whether they were really willing to make him a full partner. He was worried that the rules would change for him, because he was black. He feared that they would want more assurance that he would work out, because of the negative stereotypes some of them held about him as a black person. After all, very few partners had made any attempt to get to know him. Furthermore, he did not know if he wanted to be a partner of these men. Their lives were as out of balance as his was. He could tell that many of them were miserable and felt trapped. But, the money was so good that it seemed impossible to walk away from it without having to totally change their lifestyle and that of their families. Much, if not all, of their identity was wrapped up in the prestigious labels of attorney, large firm, and partner. Many of them secretly worried that they were incapable of doing anything other that what they had done all these years. Even if he became an equity partner, he would still be under enormous pressure to bring in business, and black partners seem to have more trouble than white partners bringing business into the firm. Whether due to discomfort with difference or bigotry, its effect is that fewer potential clients are willing to give their business to black lawyers. In addition, as Darren further explained to Andrea, it is difficult for black partners to gain access to the exclusive old boy's network where favors, friendships, memberships, and familial-like relationships are how the game is played. Also, there are fewer black clients that could afford the firm's fees; therefore, black lawyers have not been able to bring in much business from what would be a natural base. When he thought about what he would have to do to make equity partner, he wondered about his family and his own physical and mental health. If he left, where would he go? A smaller firm or an in-house counsel position may offer him more time with his family, but how would he and his wife pay their school loans and maintain their lifestyle? They had a beautiful house that they loved in a beautiful and safe suburban community with great schools for their girls. And how would he feel about himself as a black man if he walked away from this opportunity? He felt an obligation to prove himself. His believed that his failure would be viewed as a failure of the race as a whole. He wanted to be a role model to encourage young black attorneys like Andrea. He had always told himself that he was becoming a partner to have the money and influence to make a real contribution to his community. If he didn't go forward with this, he would have no way to help and he would have neglected his community and his family all these years for nothing. He was at his wits end about what to do. Darren apologized to Andrea for expressing all his doubts and giving her such a bleak picture of the firm. He explained that it had been a difficult day; he had had too much to drink, and had let his guard down because it just felt good to talk to another black person. Andrea, overwhelmed by what she had heard, assured Darren that she understood and that he should not worry. She was sure he would figure it out. When Andrea arrived home she told her husband all that Darren
had said. She also mentioned what she had learned at the party about women
at the firm. There were very few income or equity female partners and
almost no female senior associates. The partner Andrea had liked most
from the summer had left the firm to start her own practice and now there
was not one female partner left in her department. One woman had left
on maternity leave and had come back within three weeks of delivering
her baby, because the partner she had been working with on a case was
calling her at home every day. After their conversation, Andrea calmed down. Perhaps Darren was wrong about the firm. Maybe he was just having a bad day like he said. This was just his personal story; it didn't have to be hers. Maybe Darren just had not been strong enough or smart enough. Also, he had kids; she didn't. She could wait (maybe until she had made partner). Nothing Darren had said changed anything really. She had already considered all the issues he had raised. If it didn't work; it didn't work. She vowed to take care of her health, make time for her husband, continue the youth tutoring project that she had started in law school, and make extra efforts to reach out and get to know the firm's partners. After all, she had done the impossible before.
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