Growing up on the Caribbean island of Antigua, I never had to think about race. Everyone pretty much looked like me and those who didn’t were transitory - tourists. When it came to gender, I was empowered to be an independent, forward thinking woman at a young age. Having grown up with four older brothers, I saw men as my equal and neither my activities nor my interests were limited by my gender.
Climbing trees, scaling fences, playing cricket and basketball were some of my favorite pastimes - all to my mother’s chagrin. You see my mother always wanted a daughter and it took her five tries to have one and here I was being “one of the boys” - where was her little princess? Somewhere lost in translation because I was pushing gender boundaries and forging the blueprint for the woman I would eventually become.
By the time I left Antigua to embark on my dream of becoming a lawyer in America, I had a strong sense of self and a deep-rooted belief that I could accomplish anything. My journey began at a university in Jersey City, NJ where I seamlessly adjusted to my new environment without much thought to race or gender.
After undergrad, I went to law school in Miami. This is when things began to change; I became more aware of race and gender. When I scanned the room of my entering class at orientation, there were not a lot of people who looked like me but this class had more women than men. However, in the greater scheme of things, the overall student body was predominantly male.
I did well enough my first semester to get a few interviews. I remember discussing the topic with some fellow black female students. We were talking about what I should wear. I told them I was going to wear my killer pants suit, a graduation gift from my brother. That was met by shock and one person even said “You better wear a skirt, you can’t give them another reason not to like you.” What the heck was that supposed to mean? I had good grades. I’m likable. What does my clothes have to do with it? I have always been a rebel; I wore my pant suit!
I graduated from law school cum laude and was editor-in-chief of a law review and could not find a job. I kept looking and looking and would go on interview after interview and still nothing. It got to the point where one of my brothers wondered if I was having such a hard time because I was black. I refused to believe that the legal profession, charged with blindly administering justice and upholding our best ideals, would be so biased. I persevered.
Eventually, I landed a job at a firm where I was the only black person employed there. Not the only black lawyer, but the only black person, period and one of three women lawyers. I did not let the lack of diversity bother me. I was good at my job and won when I went to court. But some issues started creeping up. Part of my compensation was based on how many cases I successfully litigated or settled. The problem was that the partners would give all the other lawyers cases of their own but would not give me any for myself. I was put to work on cases with a more senior lawyer. However, there were two other associates hired a few days before me who had their own cases. What was happening here? Was it an inadvertent race thing? I was not going to stew about it so I demanded I get my own cases and they begrudgingly gave me a few but not as many as the other lawyers. I knew the reason had nothing to do with my work product because they were templating my arguments to use any time the same issues came up.
Beyond the unequal distribution of cases, there was also an encounter with a more senior lawyer who wanted to treat me like his secretary and have me enter his cases into the firm’s database so he would not miss a deadline. As litigators, this is a task we all had to do. I just kept coming up with an excuse for why I didn’t have time to do it for him. When I ran out of excuses, I flat out told him I went to law school and passed the bar. I was not his secretary!
As I progressed in the legal profession, I realized more and more that diversity in race and gender was often lacking. Most of the time that I would see diversity in race and gender, was at a diversity event. Then I would be like where are you all hiding?
If diversity is lacking in the general legal profession it is more painfully obvious when you enter the world of arbitration. I was accepted to the panel of neutrals for a major arbitration organization and when I went for my arbitrator training, out of a class of twenty-five, I was one of five women and the only person of color, any color. Not too long ago, I went to an arbitrator speed networking event and I was the only black woman.
It is sad that in 2016 the legal profession is still so far behind when it comes to diversity. I am not looking at studies or statics, I am looking from the perspective of being a person on the ground. Having endless conferences about diversity but not hiring qualified, diverse candidates make these conferences just for show. The upper echelons of the legal profession and across the board need to reflect the society we serve because diversity is the spice of life and is what makes America great!