While some of the nation's elite law schools recruit as many as 20 percent of their students from minority groups, the nation's top law firms choose to maintain an old boys' club. Data collected from the 12 highest-grossing firms show that in recent years minority attorneys accounted for only 5 percent of new partners. And the statistics at some firms are even more discouraging.

Since 1997, none of the 33 new partners at Sullivan & Cromwell have been members of minority groups, the Times reported.

At Weil, Gotshal & Manges, only 3.3 percent of new partners in recent years are lawyers of color. At Shearman & Sterling, only 2.6 percent of new partners are lawyers of color, with one new partner of color out of 17 this year and none in the previous two years.

Some lawyers blame these dismal statistics on the lack of mentors for lawyers of color.

Without close relationships with senior attorneys, the best work "is given to those people whom the partner likes most," said Angel G. Gomez, the new president of the Hispanic National Bar Association. "Who's that going to be? That's going to be the individual who went to their alma mater, the individual who comes from their hometown." Gomez resigned as the only Hispanic partner of a Chicago law firm to help start a new law practice.

Others note that it takes up to eight years for a lawyer to become partner in many firms. Many junior attorneys of color, seeing the glass ceiling and no opportunity for advancement, choose not to bang their heads against it.

Theodore V. Wells Jr., co-chairman of litigation at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York, said he finds the statistics depressing. "It has taken us almost 15 years to get to the point where most large firms now have one African-American partner," he said.

Meanwhile, to make matters worse, the number of students of color graduating from law school has decreased after 15 years of steady growth, according to the American Bar Association. Last year, 7,391 students of color received law degrees, 19.4 percent of all graduates, as compared to a 1998 high of 7,751, or 19.6 percent. And the number of minority summer interns fell 10 percent this year, according to the National Association for Law Placement. Summer internships are an important tool used by firms to recruit new lawyers.

This summer, some of my classmates expressed their frustration working at corporate law firms. Some classmates spoke of racial insensitivity on the part of white attorneys who seemingly have little experience dealing with people of color in a professional setting. Others learned of the many African-American attorneys who could not cope with a hostile racial environment and dwindling career prospects in their firm and left for the nonprofit sector.

But there is a glimmer of hope. Last year, 13 percent of associates at law firms were people of color, up from 8 percent in 1993, according to the New York Times. Bar associations in New York City and Columbus, Ohio, are responding to the problem by taking measures to increase the number of lawyers of color. Law firms in cities such as Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco have done a much better job of maintaining diversity in their ranks through aggressive recruiting efforts.

Nevertheless, the recent survey should serve as an embarrassment to the legal profession. Diversity is the future of America, and the nation's law firms should follow suit.

David A. Love is a public interest scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He contributed to the book "States of Confinement: Policing, Detention and Prisons" (St. Martin's Press, 2000). He can be reached at pmproj@progressive.org.

©David A. Love

###