How do you add diversity?

[stjaba]

Law Reviews traditionally merit select in a blind environment (top 10% of the class after year one with a handful selected as write ons (anonymous papers selected by faculty and law review member committee). Thus your premise is false. Given equal brains and determination whichever one wrote the better paper or scored the highest on blindly graded exams over their first year gets onto law review.

I think that's the traditional idea, but in practice not so, both now and even in the past. My dad who went to Georgtown Law in the late 70s, told me that the "write-on" was basically used a way to get non white males onto the journals.

At my law school(UF), to get onto law review, the only automatic way to get onto law review is to finish in the top 4 of your section of approximately 100. The other spots are handed out via competition. I'm assuming that is to help achieve some sort of diversity on the law review. I've been in the law review office before, and the group pictures of previous law editors are like 95% white males.  :lol:But they were mostly from before this decade, so I imagine it has probably changed a little bit in the past 10 years. Apparently UF was about 60% men to women ratio as recently as about 15 years ago.

[Martinus]

I think people arguing against diversity here forget that the academic results alone are not such a very good measure for the future employee's capabilities either. After all, noone sane would say that we should hire some who is an obnoxious antisocial loner only because he had a 91% score over someone who works well with others but had a 90% score. It's all a matter of weighing in various pros and cons of the prospective employee, academic results being just one of many.

Now, the question shouldn't really be why diversity should trump academic results, but whether it is relevant at all for the employee's performance. I believe the diversity advocates (this is also the official line of our firm when it comes to promoting diversity) argue that a more diverse working environment promotes both better working relations (both inside and outside, towards clients etc. - this is in essence a "daily diversity training" so to speak - and since our clients come from different backgrounds this is useful) but also can help coming up with more creative solutions to problems (and contrary to what some of you may believe, certain areas of law especially are not resistant to stuff like creativity and innovation). Essentially the argument goes that a room full of 10 white straight males is less likely to come up with something new or creative than a room of 10 people from diverse backgrounds.

Not to mention, from my personal experience, kids from poorer backgrounds often prove more hardworking and dedicated employees than all-As upper middle class kids with a sense of entitlement.

Again, the alternative of "hire a black lesbian idiot instead of a white straight genius" is a false one. Both people are likely to have a similar academic score. But hiring someone only based on their academic score and nothing else is what would be really insane.

[Martinus]

To put it differently, consider the following mental exercise: you get applications from two candidates. Their cvs in terms of academic record are exactly the same. The only difference is that one is an obviously upper middle class white kid, and the other is a black kid from a disadvantaged background.

In the absence of any other information, the sensible choice would be then to hire the black kid. Why? Because he is more likely to be hardworking and dedicated, considering his disadvantaged start (that's not to say the white privileged kid is not necessarily that either, but we are talking about probabilities here).

Now, if you agree with the above conclusion, then it clearly means that we are assigning some value to the fact that a job applicant is from a disadvantaged group or background, no? So once we get there, the question really remains how much value we assign to it. If the white applicant had a 91% academic score and the black had 90%, would you still hire the black one? What about 91% vs. 89%? Etc.

[garbon]

:facepalm:

[Rasputin]

Law Reviews traditionally merit select in a blind environment (top 10% of the class after year one with a handful selected as write ons (anonymous papers selected by faculty and law review member committee). Thus your premise is false. Given equal brains and determination whichever one wrote the better paper or scored the highest on blindly graded exams over their first year gets onto law review.

I think that's the traditional idea, but in practice not so, both now and even in the past. My dad who went to Georgtown Law in the late 70s, told me that the "write-on" was basically used a way to get non white males onto the journals.

At my law school(UF), to get onto law review, the only automatic way to get onto law review is to finish in the top 4 of your section of approximately 100. The other spots are handed out via competition. I'm assuming that is to help achieve some sort of diversity on the law review. I've been in the law review office before, and the group pictures of previous law editors are like 95% white males.  :lol:But they were mostly from before this decade, so I imagine it has probably changed a little bit in the past 10 years. Apparently UF was about 60% men to women ratio as recently as about 15 years ago.

Uf is the perfect example of what I speak. The Uf law review selection process is a merit based process based upon either class rank (determined by a blind grading system) or by an anonymous writing competition. As a result, being on UF's law review is a meaningful indicator of competitive academic achievement to a prospective employer to the point where that same employer assumes that someone who could only make the Journal of Law and Public Policy, instead of the Law Review, was just not quite as a good a writer or not quite as academically talented.

Quite simply among the prestige law firms, Law Review is typically one of the most important criteria in determining whether a hiring partner (as opposed to staff) will ever even see a student's resume.

Dilute that brand on the altar of diversity and it only hurts those who got there by achievement because employers will cease giving it any weight.

[Malthus]

I think people arguing against diversity here forget that the academic results alone are not such a very good measure for the future employee's capabilities either. After all, noone sane would say that we should hire some who is an obnoxious antisocial loner only because he had a 91% score over someone who works well with others but had a 90% score. It's all a matter of weighing in various pros and cons of the prospective employee, academic results being just one of many.

Now, the question shouldn't really be why diversity should trump academic results, but whether it is relevant at all for the employee's performance. I believe the diversity advocates (this is also the official line of our firm when it comes to promoting diversity) argue that a more diverse working environment promotes both better working relations (both inside and outside, towards clients etc. - this is in essence a "daily diversity training" so to speak - and since our clients come from different backgrounds this is useful) but also can help coming up with more creative solutions to problems (and contrary to what some of you may believe, certain areas of law especially are not resistant to stuff like creativity and innovation). Essentially the argument goes that a room full of 10 white straight males is less likely to come up with something new or creative than a room of 10 people from diverse backgrounds.

Not to mention, from my personal experience, kids from poorer backgrounds often prove more hardworking and dedicated employees than all-As upper middle class kids with a sense of entitlement.

Again, the alternative of "hire a black lesbian idiot instead of a white straight genius" is a false one. Both people are likely to have a similar academic score. But hiring someone only based on their academic score and nothing else is what would be really insane.

It's a false dichotomy you are proposing. What opponents of mandatory "diversity" programs tend to oppose is not flexibility in hiring practices, but some sort of quota system that in effect enforces "diversity" in the face of actual applicants.

No law office has ever hired on the basis of marks alone, there is always an interview and subjective component to it. The problem is of course that, when left to their choice, law firms are ready to embrace some forms of "diversity' readily (most law offices have no problem achieving 'gender diversity') but not others (law offices conspicuously lack visible minorities and people from lower class backgrounds, whereas other minorities - such as Jews - are vastly over-represented).

Why? Because, for whatever reason, visible minorities and folks from lower class backgrounds are not attracted to the practice of law.

What this means in practice is that there simply are very few candidates who are "black kids from disadvantaged backgrounds". My law school year had none - not one; and not because the school did not want Black students. If law firms are *forced* by some sort of "diversity program" to hire a certain percentage of Black kids from low class backgrounds, they will have no choice but to hire whoever applies. Chances are, with incentives like that, that the student will *not* be as good as a comparable White candidate - not because Blacks are dumb but because the pool is so tiny.

Assuming this is true, the logical thing to have happen is a sort of tokenism - hire the (presumably less capable) Black student because you have to, and have him do some joe-job or other where he or she can do no harm.

In terms of school admissions look at what I posted about the U of T's policy on aboriginals. The U of T basically requires 25-30 out of a class of 180 to be aboriginal (or 13-17% of the class vs. about 3.8% of the pop. of Canada - the imbalance being even worse than suggested as aboriginals are generally not a group that traditionally is highly represented in law); in order to do that (given that not so many aboriginals apply), it has to relax standards to the point where the only admission criteria is convincing the committe that you can survive law school. The remaining places are taken by everyone else, who must compete on the usual standards - grades, aptitude, etc. Moreover, grading while *in* law school is relaxed in the case of aboriginal students.

Knowing that, if you were under arrest and facing a hefty prision sentence for something you didn't do, who would you want representing you if you were forced to choose someone fresh out of law school - an aboriginal lawyer, or a non-aboriginal one? Would you take the chance with your liberty that the aboriginal guy has some unique perspective lacking in boring button-down upper middle class white people who merely got excellent marks and otherwise demonstrated exceptional aptitude?

[Rasputin]

To put it differently, consider the following mental exercise: you get applications from two candidates. Their cvs in terms of academic record are exactly the same. The only difference is that one is an obviously upper middle class white kid, and the other is a black kid from a disadvantaged background.

In the absence of any other information, the sensible choice would be then to hire the black kid. Why? Because he is more likely to be hardworking and dedicated, considering his disadvantaged start (that's not to say the white privileged kid is not necessarily that either, but we are talking about probabilities here).

Now, if you agree with the above conclusion, then it clearly means that we are assigning some value to the fact that a job applicant is from a disadvantaged group or background, no? So once we get there, the question really remains how much value we assign to it. If the white applicant had a 91% academic score and the black had 90%, would you still hire the black one? What about 91% vs. 89%? Etc.

You've almost made a good point. An employer will and should hire the kid from an economically disadvantaged background (assuming academics were comparable) because that employee will have an intangible hunger to succeed and better themselves.

You however are quite racist in your suggestion that this determination can be made by visual aesthetics.

I submit Obama's daughters will not be nearly as disadvantaged or hungry as the average white male who grew up in Appalachia.

[The Minsky Moment]

All of which means that, in many cases, shoddy lawyering will be detected relatively swiftly.

I can think of many examples to the contrary.  Good thing to, because that fact helps keep me in business.

[Barrister]

Knowing that, if you were under arrest and facing a hefty prision sentence for something you didn't do, who would you want representing you if you were forced to choose someone fresh out of law school - an aboriginal lawyer, or a non-aboriginal one? Would you take the chance with your liberty that the aboriginal guy has some unique perspective lacking in boring button-down upper middle class white people who merely got excellent marks and otherwise demonstrated exceptional aptitude?

Well since aboriginals are grossly over-represented in the criminal justice system the fact of who a white middle class male might choose to represent them isn't all that important.  An aboriginal offender may very well want the aboriginal lawyer because he has, not a unique perspective, but a perspective very similar to the offender's own and who might well be better able to explain that perspective to the court.

U of M Law had a number of spots reserved for aboriginal law students.  They were never able to even fill all of them, and yes the entrance requirements for an aboriginal person were quite a bit lower than for me.  I'm not convinced that is the best way to rectify the very low number of aboriginal lawyers, but I can at least understand why they do it.

[Malthus]

Knowing that, if you were under arrest and facing a hefty prision sentence for something you didn't do, who would you want representing you if you were forced to choose someone fresh out of law school - an aboriginal lawyer, or a non-aboriginal one? Would you take the chance with your liberty that the aboriginal guy has some unique perspective lacking in boring button-down upper middle class white people who merely got excellent marks and otherwise demonstrated exceptional aptitude?

Well since aboriginals are grossly over-represented in the criminal justice system the fact of who a white middle class male might choose to represent them isn't all that important.  An aboriginal offender may very well want the aboriginal lawyer because he has, not a unique perspective, but a perspective very similar to the offender's own and who might well be better able to explain that perspective to the court.

U of M Law had a number of spots reserved for aboriginal law students.  They were never able to even fill all of them, and yes the entrance requirements for an aboriginal person were quite a bit lower than for me.  I'm not convinced that is the best way to rectify the very low number of aboriginal lawyers, but I can at least understand why they do it.

As can I.

But like any quota system, it makes for less confidence in members of the "favoured" group, to the extent that they are identifiable - a lack of confidence that is totally justified.

That may be a price worth paying for policy reasons - but it does no good at all to deny the reality of the price, by in effect suggesting that skills don't really matter all that much.

[Malthus]

All of which means that, in many cases, shoddy lawyering will be detected relatively swiftly.

I can think of many examples to the contrary.  Good thing to, because that fact helps keep me in business.

Sure there are many cases in which on some specific piece of work no-one will notice incompetence or out-of-depth. But in a practice, over many pieces of work, reiterated over months - it isn't very probable that it will not be noticed.

[derspiess]

I believe the diversity advocates (this is also the official line of our firm when it comes to promoting diversity) argue that a more diverse working environment promotes both better working relations (both inside and outside, towards clients etc. - this is in essence a "daily diversity training" so to speak - and since our clients come from different backgrounds this is useful) but also can help coming up with more creative solutions to problems (and contrary to what some of you may believe, certain areas of law especially are not resistant to stuff like creativity and innovation). Essentially the argument goes that a room full of 10 white straight males is less likely to come up with something new or creative than a room of 10 people from diverse backgrounds.

Yep, that's pretty much the core philosophy of the Cult of Diversity.  It makes you feel warm inside to imagine Diversity magically making a business run better.  Too bad it's all complete bunk.

[Barrister]

All of which means that, in many cases, shoddy lawyering will be detected relatively swiftly.

I can think of many examples to the contrary.  Good thing to, because that fact helps keep me in business.

Sure there are many cases in which on some specific piece of work no-one will notice incompetence or out-of-depth. But in a practice, over many pieces of work, reiterated over months - it isn't very probable that it will not be noticed.

While I don't doubt that an incompetent lawyer will be found out (eventually!), my own experience tends to show me that clients are unable to distinguish between a merely average practitioner and an excellent one.

[Rasputin]

I believe the diversity advocates (this is also the official line of our firm when it comes to promoting diversity) argue that a more diverse working environment promotes both better working relations (both inside and outside, towards clients etc. - this is in essence a "daily diversity training" so to speak - and since our clients come from different backgrounds this is useful) but also can help coming up with more creative solutions to problems (and contrary to what some of you may believe, certain areas of law especially are not resistant to stuff like creativity and innovation). Essentially the argument goes that a room full of 10 white straight males is less likely to come up with something new or creative than a room of 10 people from diverse backgrounds.

Yep, that's pretty much the core philosophy of the Cult of Diversity.  It makes you feel warm inside to imagine Diversity magically making a business run better.  Too bad it's all complete bunk.

My pet peave is that diversity cultists only care about visual diversity.

True diversity would be grouping people with different socio-economic backrounds and different politics and different poltical beliefs. Then you'd have a true marketplace of ideas and true diversity.

The suggestion that the mere happenstance of the color of ones skin or gender creates a diversity of thought is itself rascist.

[Malthus]

All of which means that, in many cases, shoddy lawyering will be detected relatively swiftly.

I can think of many examples to the contrary.  Good thing to, because that fact helps keep me in business.

Sure there are many cases in which on some specific piece of work no-one will notice incompetence or out-of-depth. But in a practice, over many pieces of work, reiterated over months - it isn't very probable that it will not be noticed.

While I don't doubt that an incompetent lawyer will be found out (eventually!), my own experience tends to show me that clients are unable to distinguish between a merely average practitioner and an excellent one.

A merely average lawyer in my field is always telling clients why they can't do something. An excellent lawyer is always telling clients how they can.

I assume in both cases the lawyers are accurate; but the difference, I suggest, is great.