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After graduation, what's next for women of color in the field of law?

Catalyst, a leading nonprofit research and advisory organization dedicated to the advancement of women in business and the professions, released the 2001 study Women in Law: Making the Case which cites the following key findings:

• Career Satisfaction finds that women of color law graduates are the least satisfied overall, and in particular are less satisfied than white women law graduates with factors related to advancement.
  
  
• With respect to advancement, 41% of white women law graduates are satisfied, compared to 30% of women of color.
  
  
• Women of color law graduates also report lower levels of satisfaction with networking and mentoring-specific components of advancement.

The only area in which women of color law graduates are more satisfied than white women is work/life balance, where 70% of white women law graduates say work/life balance is difficult compared to 57% of women of color. This is probably due to the demographic differences between white women and women of color.

Women of color law graduates are more likely than white women to:

• Be younger
  
  
• Be single and have no children.

The low satisfaction rates registered by women of color law graduates can be explained in part by how they perceive the climate for diversity in their organizations. White men and women law graduates do not observe race issues in the same way that people of color do. The greatest gap exists between white men and women of color, but even white women significantly underestimate the importance of race. Women in Law: Making the Case shows that:

• 25% women of color agree that being a person of color hinders advancement opportunities (13% white women / 5% white men).
  
  
• 36% women of color agree that many stereotypes about people of color exist in their organization (21% white women / 10% white men).
  
  
• 46% women of color agree that clients prefer to work with white lawyers (26% white women / 13% white men).
  
  
• 44% women of color agree that they would like more attention to race/ethnic issues (35% white women / 26% white men).

In June 2003, the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA), a leading advocate for the expanded hiring promotion and retention of minority attorneys in corporate legal departments and the law firms that serve them, released a groundbreaking report, From Lawyer to Business Partner: Career Advancement in Corporate Law Departments, based on a study conducted by Catalyst.

In respect to women of color, From Lawyer to Business Partner cited the following findings:

• Mentors play an important role in helping attorneys to navigate the corporate environment. They acted as coaches to provide guidance and as sponsors to provide visibility and credibility regarding onešs work ethic and ability for people of color especially, mentors, including often family members, provided critical guidance in how to handle racial stereotyping.
  
  
• General counsel must be prepared to lead increasingly diverse legal teams and this entails promoting the inclusion of talented and involved women and minorities from their primary law firms.
  
  
• Corporations are increasingly focused on diversity issues internally and for their external service providers.
  
  
• Many of the general counsel participants recognize the critical role they can play in affecting change in law firm environments.
  
  
• The general counsel interviewed in this study are looking for talented and involved women and minorities to lead engagements and/or be included on their matters, not simply serve as tokens for client calls.

Regarding promotion of diversity in law firms, MCCA's From Lawyer to Business Partner reports that law firm diversity is important to corporate law departments for several reasons:

• Law firms are the training grounds and primary hiring pool for corporate law departments. Consequently, corporate law departments interested in promoting the diversity of their own staff often look to diverse outside counsel for their own future hiring needs.
  
  
• Promoting diversity in their outside counsel is part of a law department's overall external effort to do business with minority and women-owned vendors or with majority-owned businesses committed to diversity in their staff.
  
  
• As significant clients to their outside counsel, every general counsel has tremendous leverage to promote the advancement of women and minorities in law firms.

Who makes up the general counsel and how do they use that leverage?

• MCCA's annual survey of Fortune 500 general counsel found women were about 9% of the Fortune 500 general counsel in 2000, and nearly 13% in 2002—a 50% increase in two years. From 1999 to 2002, the number of people of color holding the position of general counsel in Fortune 500 companies almost tripled from 11 to 30.
  
  
• Many general counsel participants spoke of paying attention to the race and gender of the teams used to staff their matters. They have also communicated to the managing partners of their outside law firms that diversity—with respect to both gender and race—is important to their company and by extension to the service providers the company hires.
  
  
• Some general counsel participants ask their law firms to provide diversity data on both the attorneys staffing their matters and representation by race and gender in the firm generally.
  
  
• Several general counsel participants made a point of saying they do not want "token" women and minorities on their matters. Rather, they want to see women and minorities working on their matters in meaningful roles.

The ability to lead a diverse and inclusive law department and manage diverse work forces is an expectation of general counsel and those who aspire to legal management roles.

For more information visit Catalyst's web site at www.catalystwomen.org.