Bar launches pipeline to diversity
By Diane Curtis
Staff Writer
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Ashley |
More than 400 lawyers and judges attended the State Bar’s 2006 Spring
Summit in San Jose, which set the wheels in motion for promoting proven programs
that will bring more people of color into the legal profession.
“It’s unacceptable,” said Ruthe Ashley, a State Bar board
member and chair of the bar’s Diversity Pipeline Task Force, “that
53 percent of the state population is made up of people of color and only 17
percent of lawyers in the state are people of color.” California needs
to greatly narrow that gap, and not just because it’s the right thing
to do, said Ashley, assistant dean of career and professional development at
McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento. “It’s no longer just a feel-good
reason. It’s become a business reason.”
Globalization means that California — and the nation — are providing
services to a widely diverse population, and the more lawyers who look like
their clients, understand their clients’ cultures and backgrounds and
relate to the expanding universe, the more successful they will be.
The summit, “Dream Deferred No Longer: Achieving Diversity in the Legal
Profession,” included providing a “baseline” of statistics
from which to measure future improvements in a state that currently has more
than 203,000 attorneys.
For example, task force members compiled statistics showing that in Los Angeles
County, where Hispanics make up 45 percent of the population, only 6.6 percent
of lawyers are Hispanic. In Santa Clara County, where Asians make up 26 percent
of the population, Asian lawyers account for 9 percent of the attorneys. In
San Francisco, whites make up 81 percent of the legal force while they are
just 44 percent of the population. In Alameda County, blacks make up 6 percent
of the general population and 2 percent of the attorney workforce. In
Fresno County, the largest ethnic population is Hispanic, at 44 percent, but
Hispanics comprise only 7.4 percent of the lawyers in the county.
Alameda County Superior Court Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte presented figures
showing percentages of African-American, Asian/Pacific Islander and Latino
judges in different counties compared to their percentages in the general population.
In Kern County, where 51 percent of ethnic minorities make up the population,
only 3 percent of judges are ethnic minorities. Eighteen counties — Contra
Costa, Fresno, Kern, Los Angeles, Monterey, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino,
San Diego, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara,
Solano, Stanislaus, Tulare and Ventura — had a difference of more than
25 percent between total ethnic population and total number of ethnic judges
in counties with more than 10 judges.
“We have a long way to go in achieving diversity in our court system,” Harbin-Forte
said.
Four different Pipeline Task Force working groups representing education,
bar associations and law firms, courts and government, and corporate counsel
offered a preliminary agenda designed to ensure that more underrepresented
minorities become part of the legal profession. A final list of proven programs
will be rolled out at the bar’s annual meeting in October by outgoing
President Jim Heiting, who created the task force.
All the programs are in place somewhere, but, said Rod Fong, moderator of
a summit panel and assistant dean at Golden Gate University School of Law,
they are not widespread. Fong said in studying the issue of diversity, he kept
hearing two messages from lawyers: too many programs are done in isolation
and it’s time to stop talking about the problem and start doing something
about it.
Approved pipeline programs, which start in pre-school and continue into the
working years, meet four criteria, Ashley said.
They meet standards of continuity, sustainability, impact and replicability
and are not one-time programs that are here today and gone tomorrow, she said.
They must have a long-term effect that translates into plugging the pipeline
leaks that rob young people of the opportunity to consider going into law.
That can mean programs for elementary school students where attorneys go into
classrooms on a regular basis or six-week, pre-law institutes or better LSAT
preparation for those students who tend not to test well.
About 270 legal professionals from around the state attended the summit. Another
150 participated in a first-ever California Judicial Summit program designed
to encourage more diversity in the courts.
A
pipeline to the profession (by Jim Heiting, president, State Bar
Baord of Governors)
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