The New York University School of Law hosted a panel on Thursday night to discuss a private law firm’s role in combating racial inequality in and outside of the work place. The discussion was moderated by Tony Thompson, the founding director of the center, which is successfully in its second year.
Among the panelists were Theodore Wells, a criminal lawyer at Paul, Weiss Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison who is “deemed the heart and soul of the bar” and Lisa Davis, an NYU Law School alumni who currently defends celebrities and entertainers at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein + Selz and has been identified as one of the best entertainment lawyers in America. Damaris Hernández, another NYU Law alumni and the first Latina partner at Cravath, Swaine and Moore joined the discussion along with Debo Adegbile, yet another NYU graduate who specializes in anti-discrimination practice at WilmerHale.
The first talking point of the night was the private sector’s role in public affairs relating to race and inequality. Adegbile does not “see law firms as being at the tip of the spear” of change as “lawyers are generally conservative.” Although they can play a role, he stressed that we should not rely on them too heavily.
However, Hernández fired back by noting that a position at a big law firm does come with an equally large platform to implement change. She ensures that her firm creates a “safe
space” in which people feel they “can come in, they can be supported... [and] they can find mentors at any given moment.”
She also explained how she uses her firm's resources for good. “I use the resources of the firm and my own individual resources and I give back,” Hernandez said. She is on the pro bono committee, works with the transgender committee and has a Title VII case against an Alabama county that is guilty of racism for which she flies to Alabama once a month. She also oversees the associates filing DACA applications and doing travel ban work.
The talk also examined the role of individual lawyers of color in this political climate. Davis noted a “double burden” of people of color in any career to do their jobs well while also being ambassadors and mentors for minorities in their field. She explained that she and other successful minorities act as the “conscience of the law firm” when it comes to race and equality, which drives change within individual firms.
Wells’ final message to the audience of aspiring lawyers was that racial injustice is a continuum. “This is a continuing battle, a continuing struggle,” he said. Wells explained that his generation was “in constant fighting mode” as they grew up during the peak of the Civil Rights Movement with Jim Crow laws and the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. His biggest wish is that the
next generation will continue to fight. While Thursday night’s panelists acknowledged the challenges ahead, they also believed that private law firms can play a significant role in the fight towards equality.