Raising the Bar: Diversifying Big Law

by Anthony C. Thompson (Editor, Introduction), Debo P. Adegbile, Lisa Davis

A first-of-its-kind book of honest reflections, straight talk, and essential advice about life at big law firms for people of color

What do young people of color aspiring to careers in the law need to know about life at big law firms? What do law schools need to do to prepare them? What do the firms themselves need to do to attract, retain, and promote them?

In Raising the Bar, four partners of color from leading law firms engage in a no-holds-barred conversation about what it takes to make it in big law using their own journeys to the top to discuss how law firms can do a better job of attracting and holding on to a more diverse set of young attorneys.

They also offer advice to the attorneys themselves on how to succeed in a culture that has long excluded them, including finding mentors among those who don’t look like you, building a portable toolkit of skills, establishing key connections outside the firm, and staying “true to you,” even as young associates of color navigate the foreign terrain of insular firm culture.

The book also includes a section of concrete advice from diversity coordinators at several top law firms.

Genres: Nonfiction

192 pages, Hardcover

Published August 6, 2019

Reviews

[Bimal Patel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diversity and inclusion is the theme these days at many institutions, public and private sector work places and corporations. In Raising the Bar: Diversifying Big Law the author Anthony C. Thompson discusses how this theme can be included in workings of Big Law firms. Unlike many professions, Law remains a somewhat conservative profession where we haven't achieved much diversity in terms of colored folks in partnership position though that is changing we are lagging significantly behind. This book dubbed as a Playbook for law firms on how to diversity their workforce by mentoring, feedback, compensating is an interesting and insightful read. For colored folks as the be it Latino, African american, Asian or women, the prevailing way to success is work twice, thrice or even four times as hard to achieve half as privileged person and the authors suggests that it is not going to change at this moment or even not in your lifetime but looking at the history we know one thing that we have come far, the pace albeit is slow.

Overall, this book is a good read and I recommend it to anyone who would like to incorporate diversity at their work place. Although the book is meant for law firms, the ideas are fundamental and adaptable to any work place be it a major corporation or small firm with just 100 employees.