Daily Journal quotes Gary Lafayette in an article investigating the challenges facing minority attorneys:
Even after finishing law school, minority students are far less likely than their white counterparts to pass the California bar exam on their first try. Then, even if they are hired at a large firm, the work environment they enter can be unwelcoming, with few minority partners to ease their assimilation into the firm culture.
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Establishing at least a core group of black, Hispanic and Asian attorneys is often viewed not only as critical to making minority lawyers feel comfortable in the office, but for providing a pool of seasoned veterans who can act as mentors.
“If there’s a single significant factor [in the success of a lawyer in a large firm], it’s mentoring – to whom is that attorney attached,” said San Francisco attorney Otis McGee. The Arnelle Hastie McGee Willis & Greene partner is one of a number of prominent black attorneys who emerged from Pettit & Martin, which closed in the wake of a gunman’s attack in 1993.
Good mentors do more than make sure the young associate is invited on golf outings, experts say. They can help starting lawyers get involved in cases affecting a firm’s major clients, steer them toward high-profile partners and provide useful counsel and cover when disaster strikes.
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Although law firms say they will support a candidate’s attempt to pass the bar after having once failed it, young would-be lawyers are intensely aware of the pressure to succeed the first time. That may be particularly true of minorities, who often feel they are in the spotlight anyway.
“When I went to Pettit & Martin, there was no way I was going to be the first person not to pass the bar,” said Gary Lafayette, who has since helped found San Francisco’s minority-owned Lafayette Kumagai & Clark.
Multiple attempts at passing the bar may present a particularly bleak concept for recent graduates as they survey the market after law school. Numerous studies have shown little progress in recent years in boosting the number of minorities into the upper echelons of law firms.
Excerpted from Pfaff, Dennis. “Minorities Still Feel Isolated in Law Firms.” Daily Journal. 19 February 1998. n. pag. Web. 5 April 2009.