Minorities DON'T Make Partner at BigLaw?

[biomed engineer]

To be honest, it wouldn't really bother me if I didn't make partner right away.  The average starting salary for a lawyer is above $100,000 per year in some cities (See http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/othercities/kansascity/stories/2007/07/02/story10.html?b=1183348800%5E1484463 ).

What's the big deal about not making partner right away if the salary is well above $100,000 for a new associate?  I grew up on an Indian Reservation with a lot of extreme poverty.  I wouldn't get paranoid if I didn't make partner right away.  Like other managerial/senior positions, making partner might not necessarily make someone happy either.  I'll bet the extra stress and responsibilities could lead to a divorce or heart attack.  I've seen that happen among business executives.  The job security and salary above $100,000 would be more than enough for me because I have seen the cruelty of the engineering job market, which suffered from massive layoffs in the recession of 2001 and outsourcing of engineers to other countries (i.e. India).  It's like the movie "Office Space."

However, if a minority has been an associate for a very long time (e.g. 15+ years) and had not made much progress in seniority, then that would be a cause for concern.  But as long as one works hard and remains patient, then that should count for something at some law firms.  My goal is to develop a niche in legal writing because technical writing has been my strength as an engineer.  I routinely write documents in excess of 500 pages in length.  If I learn to parlay that to legal writing, then that should help with career growth.

[HtownsFinest]

This topic is addressed at considerable length in a recent Law Review article by Richard Sander (UCLA Law Prof)

It can be found here: http://www.law.ucla.edu/sander/NorthCarolina/sander.pdf

Here's the abstract:

THE RACIAL PARADOX OF THE CORPORATE LAW FIRM
RICHARD H. SANDER∗

Although nonwhites now account for nearly one-fifth of new attorneys, they still make up less than four percent of the partners at large law firms. Most commentators have blamed some combination of firm discrimination and minority disinterest for this disparity. In this Article, the author uses several new sources of data to explore this phenomenon, finding significant support for the following findings. Each of the major nonwhite groups (Asians, Hispanics and blacks) are as interested during law school in careers with large firms as are whites. Large law firms use very large hiring preferences for blacks, with the result that blacks are overrepresented among firm hires (relative to their numbers among
law graduates) and tend to have much lower grades than their white counterparts. The large preferences are plausibly linked to a variety of counterproductive mechanisms that cumulatively produce very high black attrition from firms and consequently low partnership rates. Similar patterns, on a less intense scale, affect Hispanics entering large firms. While many questions are open, the author concludes that aggressive racial preferences at the law school and law firm level tend to undermine in some ways the careers of young attorneys and may, in the end, contribute to the continuing white dominance of large-firm partnerships.

So basically, TCR is that AA is to blame. The playing field has been leveled at almost every point (ugrad, grad, oci), and the PC crowd just wants more.

TI, IT, TCR

Having an equal playing field doesn't equal having an adjustable finish line.

You lost me on TI,IT,TCR.... I typically use TI, OC, TCR if I want to draw it out. 'Splain yosef!