Daily Journal quotes Gary Lafayette in an article examining the impact of Prop. 209 on minority-owned law firms:
“Each firm’s story is as varied as there are people out there,” says Gary Lafayette of Lafayette & Kumagai, a nine-attorney San Francisco minority firm that is the second incarnation of a firm Lafayette founded that merged with another firm, which in turn went out of business. “They weren’t putting themselves in position to get the right kind of work,” Lafayette explains.
Clearly, the wild card here is Proposition 209-the ballot initiative that bans affirmative action in the public sector. Passed in 1996, it seems perfectly timed to account for the decline in minority firms, which compete for governmental contracts. But just how big an impact it’s made isn’t entirely clear.
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“We’re doing better every year,” Beasley says. “Affirmative action enabled us to establish ourselves in an area that was occupied almost completely by white men, and now our reputation gets us business.”
Lafayette echoes the point. “To be truly successful,” he says, “you have to reach a point where the work you get is based on relationships you develop, not because someone is required to give it to you.”
Excerpted from King, Matthew. “Endangered Enterprises: Can minority-owned firms survive after Prop. 209?” Daily Journal. 1 June 2001: n. pag. Web. 5 April 2009.