Here we go.

A plea - will people please stop providing ammunition to those trying to perpetuate stereotypes.

i liked the claim that "she wasn't given any real work." most junior work is not what most people think lawyers actually do. as for the blackballing, sounds like the prospective employers did reference checks and were less than impressed.

delete the last zero in the title.

Biglaw is racist. They really hate uppity blacks that try to make something of themselves. Look at the sadistic treatment that many contract attorneys receive.

Maybe contract attorneys receive sadistic treatment because they're *contract attorneys*.

who just happen to be disproportionately black, many of whom attended top tier schools.

Do you have any support whatsoever for the proposition that contract attorneys are disproportionately black? That certainly has not been my experience.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,340272,00.html

Top tier African American professionals should not be crammed into crowded basements with cockroaches and denied health benefits.

While I strongly doubt she's Ginsberg or Scalia, I'd bet there is something to her claim.
As to 11:33's claim, really? Most law firms will only confirm dates of employ to avoid a mess like this. Secondly, there's difference between doc review and not even getting doc review.
Again -I bet she wasn't an amazing lawyer, but ok to below average. Hired for window dressing. Didn't get work. Got pissed. Mentioned the race thing. Got fired for brining it up and making people uncomfortable. If Clifford gave anything other than dates of employ, they walked into this lawsuit.

We want KASH!

We want KASH!

We want KASH!

"Caroline Memnon, who is black, says in the lawsuit that despite her $125,000 salary as an associate at the New York office of London-based Clifford Chance LLP, she was never given any real work...."

If every biglaw associate could sue over never getting "real work," the firms would go out of business.

11:49, you are the worst commenter ever.

11:45 - do you have any experience with legal recruiting? the dates of employment argument doesn't work if the employee gives permission to disclose, which she is required to do by the new employer.

Contract attorneys are disproportionately minority, which can easily be ascertained via minimal discovery. Just read about some of of the sadistic things that these rich, lily white partners do to people like Ms. Morrisseau and Ms. Memnon at http://temporaryattorney.blogspot.com. It won't take much to prevail before a sympathetic pro-labor NYC jury.

11:38 - that's a ridiculous comment and this is a ridiculous case. If the firm did in fact hire her only as window dressing, then didn't she BENEFIT??? Sounds to me like she got a job she wouldn't otherwise get. What's next, black college students suing schools for admitting them via affirmative action?

"It won't take much to prevail before a sympathetic pro-labor NYC jury."

And New Yorkers wonder why their white collar jobs are fleeing for London, and their blue collar jobs are fleeing for Alabama.

Although we have all been forced to endure Kash's silence, at least we have not been forced to suffer the inanity of the wretched SEN.

11:49: I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. Would you mind repeating it? Thanks.

Isn't it safe to assume that a large firm like this with a sophisticated practice sort of, uh, knows what it's doing?

Probably wouldn't have canned her and given bad recs without a good reason.

Also, does seeking $75 mil in damages not call into question ones credibility?

75 million is probably the present value of all the money she would have made as a CC partner over the years, so it seems justified.

12:01 - you're joking right?

yes. i was being sarcastic.

I'm not going to read the complaint (is it even available) but the $75 million figure has to be punitive damages.

Hope she wins. It is time someone stood up and said no. African American lawyers are like the galley slaves of the biglaw world. The most shocking allegation is that they would African-Americanball her after they fired her for complaining.

She was fired in 2002, so there is a chance the suit may not be timely, depending on how long she spent in the administrative process. Someone in NY should track down the complaint.

i didn't know asians found humor in Curb

"Isn't it safe to assume that a large firm like this with a sophisticated practice sort of, uh, knows what it's doing?"

Yes, unless you are Sullivan & Cromwell, Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, etc....

hears a thought. . . maybe she wasn't given any real work because she had crappy work produce.

It doesn't matter how many hours you bill in a month if your work is shitty.

11:58 - you should just scroll up instead of asking 11:49 to repeat it. I recommend getting a mouse with one of those scroll wheels on it. I love mine.

re: crappy work "produce" - this is Clifford Chance, not Freshfields.

Aren't all first years the "galley slaves" of biglaw?

Another NYU grad!

giving a bad recommendation to an associate is a recipe for disaster... being let go is a market signal. Let people hang themselves at next job. Unless there is something egregious -- but even then, people can change, no reason to hold over their head. It is fairly common for an associate to leave one firm for another and leave the new firm in very short order (usually culture "shock" different expectations, or promises made by either party during interviews).

I'm Asian and I think Curb is pretty, pretty good.

I'm still a bit afraid to make Jewish jokes though. What do you call ten Jews ordering steak? A filet minyan.

I once was a contract attorney at a NYC boutique firm with all white partners and associates. I was shoved into a supply closet with two other African American lawyers. The room was extremely hot, we weren't allowed to talk, and we weren't allowed to mingle with the law firm staff. If this isn't Alabama Jim Crowe 1920's style, I don't know what is.

People who analogize contract attorney work to "galley slaves" are idiots.

It's called employment at-will. Slaves can't quit anytime they want. It trivializes the whole notion of slavery.

If you don't like working for whites, go work at a black-run firm.

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1206040363513

seriously, change your job if you are unhappy with it. Or are you stuck in a storage closet and have no other options because you didn't take school seriously? That is kind of how life works. It is a competitive field... but there are others you can get into.

"It's called employment at-will. Slaves can't quit anytime they want."

Ever hear of student loans? It's called indentured servitude.

Yes, because you were forced into those student loans against your will by white men coming ashore on ships.

We need to take the student loans from the white men? How else will we survive? Selling drugs on the street? It's unfortunate that we have to wind up as indentured servants in the bowels of rich white man biglaw.

12:18 - you weren't buying your ticket to freedom... you took a loan to get a degree. If that turned out to be a bad decision, it's not really the fault of the people paying you now.

12:07 - congrats on having by far the dumbest post I've ever seen on ATL. Here's a link that you might find useful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke

12:22 - get over yourself.

12:22 - get over yourself and get back to work.

What's an "uppity black"? The commenting on this site is barely intelligent. It's no wonder the legal profession is one of the least respected in this country.

12:06 is 12:25. Haha.

The joke wasn't great, but it was far better than the comeback.

Grocery store jokes about Freshfields are always funny.

"uppity black"?

Is a black that actually believes the propaganda that racism no longer exists in this country, that if you work hard and get an education you can get ahead. Such a naive person soon finds themself buried under mounds of non-dischargeable debt and working as an indentured servant in some miserable biglaw basement.

12:32 - its called capitalism... and it sucks for all kinds of people.

Hey Lat - STOP POSTING ABOUT RACIAL ISSUES TO GET LOTS OF POSTS!!!

11:49 - I agree, but that was a little over the top.

12:32-

I fail to see how that differs from a white person holding the same beliefs and ending up in the same situation. Your comment is idiotic.

She was a first year associate (she made $125,000 - that was first year level back then). No first year gets glamorous work. It's more real than what summer associates do, but not by much. . .

What's an "uppity associate"?

12:35- Well, contract attorneys are disproportionately black, so it was just an observation.

Lat posts about racism for various reasons. I think he is conflicted. He is a supporter a hurtful ideology (look how he includes commentary via explanation points in the title), and has been known to have verbally assaulted homosexuals and the like in the past. Surprising, given the fact that he himself is filipino and his people were butchered by white Americans less than 100 years ago. Call it an identity crisis.

Who puts dollar amounts in their Complaints? Seriously. Claiming a certain $ amount is akin to saying "please settle this so I don't have to litigate."

12:25(1) - congrats on having by far the dumbest post I've ever seen on ATL. Here's a link that you might find useful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke

who's more to blame here? lat, for race-baiting yet again to drive up post counts, or us for taking the bait and delving into another vacuous dance of stereotype and cliche?

Anyone know what school she went to?

Probably was an AA admit at Penn State and now is all uppity since she went to an "IVY"

If the locus of this suit is a claim against a legal employer for failing to engage the intellectual energy and curiosity of young associates and instead burying them with document review and other mind-numbing quasi-secreterial work, I think we can sign up a class of, ohh... ALL junior associates.

12:50

you dumb F**K. PENN is the IVY. Just because they are both TTTs does not mean you can get them confused, same way just because CLS and NYU are top schools identical in every way but location doesn't mean you can interchange them.

12:41 -- Lat is filipino and gay.

in last 100 years, The japanese imperial army were the butchers of the philiphines you ignorant sot. any filipinos butchered by white americans were likely done by necessity on the bataan death march.

OVER 100 years ago, the filipinos declared war on the US and led ruthless campaigns of murder against US whites, which were retailiated for in kind. the bloodbath went both ways. Of course this was a long time ago, and Philipines and US have had one of the most enduring relationships in the world. It continued, on a smaller scale, hardly a "butchering" until about 1912-13.

Get your facts straight, and try to find something recent to be pissed at whites for--like the nuclear bomb, internet, microwave, computer, space program or velcro.

I don't know what the big deal is. At my high school,

ah fuck it

Yet another example of what happens when you let someone into a T14 b/c of their skin color. Absolute failure. If I were her, I'd hang myself.

Clifford Chance to $0!

I got sued for calling a gay employee a "fluffer nutter" -- which is a compliment in my books. Sure, when taken apart, the words are quite offensive, either "fluffer" or "nutter" but when combined -- they are merely a harmless, yummy sandwich. Luckily the judge saw it my way... case dismissed!

Fluffer Nutter....yummy!

12:06, I feel your pain. I once had crappy work produce... the lettuce for our Thursday dinner was brown on the edges (not to mention the fact that it was mostly iceberg). Lat, I propose you start a thread on crappy work produce!

Velcro was invented by space aliens and traded to NASA for one female human embryo from each race in 1974.

"President William McKinley decided we ought to keep the Philippines in order to Christianize the natives. When reminded that Filipinos were already Roman Catholic, the president responded, 'Exactly.'

"The United States betrayed the nationalists who had helped us fight Spain, and we began our own conquest."

Mark Twain was deeply disturbed by the resulting inhuman war crimes which were committed by the brutal United States Army, Marines and Navy in the Philippines from 1899 to 1902. He was also disgusted with the rampant, jingoistic racism in which most Americans shamelessly wallowed throughout those benighted turn-of-the-century years.

(The very years which some creeps in America even now call "The Good Old Days.")

Twain cynically "saluted" the bloody, racist American genocide of 200,000 Filipino men, women and children "by suggesting that we replace the stars and stripes in our flag with the skull and crossbones."

To this day, Filipinos overcompensate in trying to be white. I once dated a Filipino girl acted white in every possible way. She was also racist against non-whites and would only date white people. Her parents encouraged her to only date whites.

Likewise, the only way for African Americans to survive in biglaw is for them to disavow themselves of their racial identities and look, act, and talk only white.

1:10 - huh?

You've just ascribed the way biglaw attorneys look, act, and talk to an entire race of people - that of "white" people (which, mind you, includes not only those of Western, Eastern, Northern and Southern European descent, but also North African descent and Eurasian descent). But at least you're not generalizing.

Black people just keep giving firms more reasons not to hire them! Well done!

1:17- yeah, that is exactly what I am saying. What is your point?

She went to Columbia, not NYU, and she didn't get admitted until 2004. That's weird considering she graduated and passed the bar in 2002.

I thought Penn was a state school. Penn cant be part of the Ivy league. Joe Paterno great coach.

@ 12:54:

That is actually what 12:50 said. We've been over this numerous times. Penn St. is an Ivy League school, and Penn is its Philadelphia campus. I think Joe Paterno's team almost always wins the Ivy League title. Also, it's the same law school in both places, and I am pretty sure the Philly campus is mostly for commuters and professionals getting a degree at night. I think they have a solid criminal justice joint degree program with their Warden school.

1:10: sounds like you're just pissy that she dumped you.

1:31- It was no big deal. Another piece of whiter bread was eventually going to come along. I no longer date people who try to overcompensate.

Any truth the rumor that world will end in 2012? Cause I won't be partner then, and I don't want to waste my last few years as an associate!?!?!?

Looks like associates everywhere are suing their firms. See here:

http://www.masslawyersweekly.com/news032008.cfm

Sounds like Mintz Levin has a history of problems in this area.

PENN IS NOT PENN STATE; THEY ARE TWO DIFFERENT SCHOOLS IN DIFFERENT CITIES IN DIFFERENT STATES. ONE IN THE BIG TEN, ONE IN THE IVY LEAGUE. ONE HAS A LAW SCHOOL; THE OTHER HAS A LAW SCHOOL. STOP THE MADNESS.

1:23 is the only one making any sense. JoePa would make a great associate.

Is Penn the one in Happy Valley? Go Lions!

different states?

75MM will do you a fat lot of good when the world ends in 2012!!!

Different states, 1:43?

Ok, so she passed the Feb '01 bar exam but didn't get admitted until 2004? Something doesn't smell right.

ZOMBIE UPRISING, 2:04!!

BigLaw Partner Dashboard Cam in SC:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/crime/2008/03/20/grace.bychowski.intv.cnn

BigLaw Partner Dash Cam

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/crime/2008/03/20/grace.bychowski.intv.cnn

I've been accepted to Penn Law but am waitlisted at Penn State. I should just hold out for Penn State, right?

A little bit of searching reveals a whole lot, people. She passed in Feb. 2001. See http://www.nybarexam.org/201_mr_d1.htm

She was admitted in the First Department in 2004 (we all know how long that can take, but at the least, it took her 2 years and 11 months). See http://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/attorney/AttorneyDetails?attorneyId=5647210

According to her attorney profile on the NY courts website, she went to Columbia.

No listing on Martindale for her.

The African American professionals stuck in doc review closets are not "top tier." Some of them may have gone to top schools, but they graduated near the bottom of their classes. Firms will bend over backwards to hire URM associates who actually perform at the required levels. This is what happens when law schools admit underqualified students because of their race. Stop expecting a free pass.

Of course, because Penn Law is actually its own state. Being a Top 10 school, the Penn State Law school - Philadelphia campus declared autonomy because it was ashamed to be part of a state school system.

It later joined forces with an independent Petoria and declared war on Pennsylvania. Needless to say, Penn Law school was once again annexed into the Penn State school system.

Little is known of what happened to Petoria.

1:25 - your humor is too subtle for teh internets... you actually had me going for a bit!

Speaking from some years of experience, senior attorneys recognize that most newbie attorneys' work will be dreck. But the question is whether their work product will improve or not. At my shop, newbies are assigned associate mentors who (damn well better) actually take an interest in training their mentees. And I try to keep an ear open as to whether the relationships are working, too.

But God help the junior associate who can’t take criticism properly, or at least can't be *taught* how to take criticism properly...

– ET!

(who, to his shame, sort of intuitively assumed Ms. Memnon belonged in the latter category)

(And also, 147 hours of work billed to the firm does NOT equal 147 hours billed to the client, of course. And also, 147 hours in her first 3 weeks suggests something unusual in her billing practices...)

Wait... so 1:43, you are trying to tell us that Penn State and Penn are two different law schools....?

...HAHAHAHA, nice try.

Charlene Morisseau? Oh, I get it -- because both women are black. That makes perfect sense now!

Let's see how many gay Asians we can compare Lat to people.

I'll get the ball rolling: George Takei...

"seriously, change your job if you are unhappy with it," hugh 12:18? Love it or leave it, right?

Don't complain and agitate to make it better!

Good point Joe (1:19). Way to assume that the suit is baseless, without knowing the merits (other than the way Lat has decribed the case), and then dismissing a whole race of young lawyers.

Something tells me that (1) you're an angry white guy, who (2) probably wouldn't look favorably on a black woman coming in for an interview anyway. Thank God (3) you're likely some pimpled-faced paralegal who wants to go to lawschool but can't score high enough to get into much more than TTT-flush.

What if there is some truth to her allegations? Do BigLaw firms really give a hoot about mentoring minority associates? When minority associates make mistakes in their work product, are they informed of the mistakes and asked to correct the problem going forward or do senior associates and partners keep the mistakes to themselves and “blacklist” the associate? Are whites’ mistakes forgiven or overlooked more than minorities’ mistakes? Is it assumed that a minorities’ work product will be “sloppy” before it is even reviewed, therefore, the product is read with an even more critical eye? Bottom line: due to stereotypes (evidenced in the above comments), minorities were never given a fair shot to succeed in the first place

03:21, all good points. I think it would be a mistake to pin all of these since on all firms, just as it would be a mistake (and illegal) to assume the worst about all minority associates and treat them accordingly.

I do think it's telling, though, that a majority of the preceding comments assume that this woman is lying or being overly-sensitive, rather than sitting back and waiting to see if there is any there there.

Who knows? The Charney case tells us that things aren't always as they appear. (But then again, I can say that moving from firm to firm to firm in such a short time frame won't play well to a jury.)

Someone earlier wrote: "Isn't it safe to assume that a large firm like this with a sophisticated practice sort of, uh, knows what it's doing?"

That's truly hilarious. Welcome to the real world, where large, sophisticated companies and highly educated people occasionally do really stupid sh*t. That's a hell of an assumption you made there. Sadly, you're being serious.

2:57 -- Awesome! Unfortunately I am drawing a blank on other gay Asians ...

Kenji Yoshino. . . and maybe Margaret Cho counts since she is a fag hag.

B.D. Wong (played the priest in Oz)

Dear XYX:

Your point is well taken. Mine was not. Allow me to elaborate. This is not a "sophisticated compan[y] with highly educated people . . . ." This is a large law firm with an employment practice. They probably know how to fire someone legally. When dealing with someone with questionable judgment (e.g. alleging $75 mil in damages - seriously?), one would assume they would make sure they did it right to minimize their risk exposure. That was my assumption. I admit that it may have been a bit generous, if not "truly hilarious." Though I am glad to have given you a laugh, I question your standards for comedic entertainment.

3:21 - good point... and worth cogitating about.

I can only speak to my and my friends' experience, but when I was doing associate mentoring, I certainly tried harder to help the associates who were women or minorities. Based on my experience (at a medium-sized, moderately progressive firm), I really DON'T think people would consciously blacklist a minority - I never saw it or heard about it, & I am pretty well plugged in to the gossip networks at my shop. In fact, most of the partners and senior associates really liked the kids we were training, albeit more on a personal level than an ethnic identification level. Mebbe that's because we aren't V10...

But now that I think about it, I wonder if my efforts came across as condescending. I'd kind of assumed Ms. Memnon's situation arose from a failure of proper training. An interesting point for me to ponder over the weekend.

- ET!

an organization is nothing but.....the sum of the....current....people there. nothing more, nothing less.

WE ARE PENN STATE!!

BigLaw Partner Dash Cam

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/crime/2008/03/20/grace.bychowski.intv.cnn

Would the judge assigned to this case sanction someone for demanding a completely unreasonable amount in their complaint?

Black and female? Let's face it, the statistics for ever becoming partner are low indeed. Firms need to wake up and try a lot harder to reach out and make it work for those who are under-represented on the partnership track.

Yeah...this whole problem is because law firms don't try hard enough to mentor minority associates. Do law firms try to mentor any associates?

Before I left the firm, I was a sixth year. The only time I'd ever gotten any feedback was in bonus meetings and looking at red-lines of my work. I always got above base, but not the top.

When someone found out I was looking to leave, mostly because I hated the job and didn't think I had a shot in hell at partnership, four different partners had meetings with me to tell me how great I was, how I was going to be getting a big bonus, and how I was on partnership track. It didn't keep me, but at least they tried.

If you do good work, they don't talk to you unless they think you're going to leave. If you do bad work, you stop getting work to do. The only indication you will get that people like your work is that they keep giving you more of it. That's the way it is in Biglaw.

She should have put a vodoo curse on the partners, she's Haitian, right?

Caroline Memnon, hmm, name rings a bell. Black Columbia graduate, could that be who I'm thinking of? Quick consultation of personal records and I pull out my Summer Associate facebook from 1999. (Yes, I keep stuff like that.) And there she is Caroline. Wacky Caroline. Totally daffy young woman. We summered together at Jones Day in 1999. Two or three things stand out. One, I'm pretty sure she did not get an offer at the end of the summer. Like all big firms, we gave out at least 90% offers to our summers every year. Keeping in mind that not giving her an offer ran the risk of hurting our recruiting at Columbia, which was our best school for "quality" recruits. And that she was one of two blacks in the summer class and we would have known we were facing a lawsuit because not giving an offer to a black person creates a potential legal action for discrimination. However, that year, the other wacko in the class was a white female Columbia student. I'm pretty sure she didn't get an offer either. So there was cover for the firm on some fronts there.

I also recall specifically early on that she said something during a lunch that was just so far out there that lots of people were shocked. I really don't recall what it was that she said, but it was something along the lines of magic being real or spirits guiding her or something really weird. Just not the type of thing you want to say in a corporate setting during your internship.

Anyway, she continued to be wacky and out there for the entire summer. Jones Day only had about 24 summers, so you definitely got a chance to get to know everyone. Could she read and write? Presumably. But this woman was just not someone you could put in front of a client.
So I'm going to tell you my guess of what happened. She got to Clifford Chance, they realized that she was a disaster, but they decided that if they fired her they might get sued for discrimination and they valued that she helped their diversity demographics (she is a two-fer, black and female). They figured there were jobs that she could do where the amount of damage she could do would be minimal and things just went along like that. Maybe they even felt that they were doing her a favor.

Now she doesn't realize that she is crazy. So the years go by and she isn't getting good work. Yes her career is going nowhere. Yes, she would have been fired years ago if she were white because then should wouldn't have been as valuable. But it isn't discrimination on Clifford Chance. This woman was just a little too "off". That is why the smaller firm, which can't afford to just cary someone, just had to let her go immediately. I don't care how many numbers you write down in your billable hour diary. One people realize you are crazy, they have to do something before you get them in real trouble.

Funny that she has resurfaced like this. I've got to contact my fellow summers.

"And that she was one of two blacks in the summer class and we would have known we were facing a lawsuit because not giving an offer to a black person creates a potential legal action for discrimination."

Seriously? How so?

"I really don't recall what it was that she said, but it was something along the lines of magic being real or spirits guiding her or something really weird."

Note the irony. I'm writing this on Easter morning -- the day that I and millions of Americans believe that a man rose from the dead and became God.

"But this woman was just not someone you could put in front of a client."

How many summers would you put in front of a client?

"... my guess of what happened."

That's helpful.

I don't believe you one bit. More importantly, I don't think you do either.

Things will not change until someone breaks the silence. Find out which partners are on the executive or management committee at your firm and send your complaints to one or more of them. The executive or management committee decides how much each partner is compensated. Hit bad partners where it hurts the most (their pocket book).

I believe him, anyone that thinks this lawsuit (all $75M) is an idiot. Anyone that's worked at BIGLAW knows that when an underrepresented minority is fired (attorney OR staff) HR builds a case over time for this very reason. I had a secretary that was absolutely godawful that took months to let go because the firm had to document her ineptitude.

Morever, what's the claim? That she didn't get good projects? How is that racial.

If nothing else we know she passed the February bar (failed the July?) and took 3 years to get admitted. That should raise red flags, NY is slow but there's no excuse not to get admitted within a year. My firm would have canned someone for that alone

BTW check your doctrine, its been a while since I've been to church but this:

"the day that I and millions of Americans believe that a man rose from the dead and became God. " Isn't a belief shared by millions of Americans

But back to the topic, I can't believe how naive or stupid someone can be to think this claim is meritorious, not just one but FOUR racist law firms are out to get this woman? Makes sense only in bazarro world.

Don't believe me? What you think I'm making this up? I'm looking at the summer facebook right now. Dual degree candidate - Columbia Law and School of International and Public Affairs - J.D./Masters in Int'l Affairs 2000, Undergrad Cornell University B.A. in Socio-politics 1993. I bet that is enough to google and get some independent confirmation.

Look I summered with this woman. She was clearly an odd person at that time. Now she is doing another odd thing, suing an ex-firm for $75 million. She was slightly odd on a day to day basis, and there was one time when she did say something truly shocking. I really don't recall what it was, maybe it was something about space aliens or something. Yes, there are plenty of religious people out there. I think it what she said went farther than what you would hear from a devout catholic. But really, I don't recall well enough that incident.

But I do remember her oddness and, in many ways, unpleasantness. It was clearly going to be a problem for her career. And no one was surprised when she didn't join us as an associate in 2000.

Do you put summers in front of clients? Not right away but the vast majority of them can be. Regardless, you hire lawyers with the hope that they will at one point be able to run deals/cases and to do that you need them to interact with the clients a lot. In corporate, junior associates start interacting with clients right away. In litigation, often later, but then you have to think about what it will be like putting them in front of a judge.

Yes, I'm just guessing about what happened to her. But frankly, I think something like this happens to a lot of blacks in the law. They are admitted into a firm with lower academic credentials than their white peers due to AA. Grades are only a decent predictor of success and some AA hires can cut the mustard anyway, some cannot. The ones that cannot are sometimes allowed to stay longer than white associates who can't hack it because the black lawyers are doing something just by being on the books (hence adding value beyond billable hours) and they also have a cost associated with firing them that white people don't. (see $75 million lawsuit for perfect example). But there is plenty of bad work to go around in lawfirms and you can keep your odd ducks doing document review or due diligence for a number of years. They just won't progress in their development. So Caroline may have been damaged by her years in Clifford Chance. Just like I think many AA candidates are damaged by being admitted to law schools where there predicted performance is in the bottom 10%.

Honestly, I wish Caroline no harm, but I guess this post is just a warning to people on this issue. My take from having "worked" (I don't recall us ever actually doing an assignment together, so our interaction was lunches, dinners, and other summer stuff) with her for a few months many many years ago is that she had problems. So unless you know a lot of facts about this (where are the Clifford Chance posters on this?), I wouldn't spend a lot of time defending this woman.

Side note, if you graduate and take bar in 2000, you get your results in the fall of 2000 and will most likely be admitted to the bar in 2001 as you have to pull together various materials and sit through some stuff. All of which is a little hard to juggle as you start practicing at your firm. Her being admitted in 2002 could simply be the fact that she didn't get around to filling out applications. If she was doing corporate (and I really don't recall what she was interested in from our summer), then getting admitted isn't a high priority and it could slip a while. Also, who knows with her dual degree if she actually ended up graduating in 2000. So I wouldn't assume that she ever failed the bar.

She was admitted in 2004, not 2002.

That's not typical, corporate or not. After a year or so it becomes a priority at any somewhat legitimate firm.

So you all are saying that the reason she was let go was because she took too long to pass the bar?

9:05: Hmmm...that's a possibility I hadn't considered. Most places, you're given a second chance, but not a third. Why would those other firms have rescinded their offers to her so quickly, though?

I have to agree with Outing's claims. I was at CC while she was there and my first impression (which only got confirmed later) was that she was odd. Then, I had to give her work and it was not exactly at the quality you'd expect of a junior associate. I don't want to say more about her but my first reaction to this case is to feel sad for her but it's 100% without merit.

Also, she hasn't been at CC all this time. She left in 2002 and no one was surprised at the time when she left.

Magical Realism a literary concept as in Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nobel Prize winner in Literature. Do you read "Outing"? Probably not! I was there. Seems to me she's intelligent and well-educated!

To Get a Life,

Sure I read. First became familiar with "magical realism" genre in a women studies class I took in college. (Though I guess "Invisible Man" was the first magical realism book that I read, read that in high school, but I don't know if the term was in widespread use back then.) I'm a fan of the concepts behind the writing, though I haven't really explored it.

Agree with you that Caroline is intelligent and well-educated. That is hard to argue with; the woman had a degree from Cornell and was in the process of getting two graduate degrees from Columbia. She is a member of the academic elite for goodness sake. Maybe I left the wrong impression, but I tried to stress that I didn't work with her and I couldn't assess her work product, I just recall her from more social, summer activities. It was in that area that she failed to elicit confidence. She was too odd.

Another thing I now vaguely recall is that she pushed back on taking on work at times because it didn't have enough international aspects to it. I couldn't imagine having the guts as a summer to tell the assignment coordinator that I was just going to chill for a week or so until they got me a better assignment. Have to say this is a pretty vague memory, so take it for what it is worth; I could be confusing her with someone else on this point. But Caroline did strike me as someone who was ready to challenge authority. That impression I quite clearly got. And it seems like she has kept up at that and now is going for a payoff from Clifford Chance.