So, you're passionate about equality in the legal profession? How passionate? What actions does your passion lead you to?

The issue of Black and minority access to business opportunities in the legal profession is one that remains far from being fixed, despite numerous decades of stated understanding and support for the concept of equality by General Counsels of most companies. Indeed, while temporarily enflamed by the passions of the moment, General Counsels have repeatedly pledged their support to hold law firms accountable for increased recruitment, and for providing access to good work, business and overall equality to Black lawyers and those of color. But so far to no avail.

In a similar vein, the goal for Black people has been to achieve equal access to good work and fruitful business opportunities since the beginning of their insertion into mainstream law firms in the seventies. Since then, Black lawyers have fought hard to establish that they are not merely interlopers in the profession or mere guests or beneficiaries of charity who should be grateful to simply have a job in law firms. We have fought indefatigably to be an integral part of the legal community – with access to the same opportunities as our non-racially diverse counterparts.

Like majority lawyers in law firms, we deserve the opportunity to feel the same sense of possession of the firm where we practice and of the industry of which we fought so hard to become a part. Indeed, many of us mortgaged the lifeblood of our forbearers for the opportunity to become members of this prestigious profession. Sadly, while we fell in love with the profession from the cradle – and sight unseen (as most of us never knew any lawyers) — the profession never loved us back. What the BLM movement has shown us is that the concept of being interlopers is not limited to the legal profession; it's an ugliness that has permeated all communities. With respect to the legal profession we know that much more work needs to be done to force the industry to reassess its past in the full light of its stated current values.

As my old football coach once told me "Prophete, you are so far behind that you've lapped yourself!" Sadly, the profession is in the process of lapping itself if it cannot or will not come to terms with is material deficiencies towards people of color and move forward with a real plan, beyond sympathetic resonances of their support for Juneteenth as a holiday. What law firms must be prepared to do is prove that GCs – both Black and White – can move from signers to catalysts.

It's easy to sign letters and to tell the legal community how much you support diversity and increased opportunities for Blacks and other diverse groups. However, talk is cheap and continues to be cheapened by the decades of failed attempts at meaningfully moving the needle. What GCs must do moving forward is show that they are willing to go beyond being institutional to being disruptive. We need GCs to develop the same level of big ambitions regarding equality in the industry that they apply in the business world of the companies they serve. It takes intellectual rigor to effect change and requires very serious strategies. Ideas and empty pronouncements are easy. Execution of a real plan is everything!

If the goal is to simply appear passionate and in tune with the times, then we have reached our limits to progress, as GCs have done a good job projecting both for some time now. However, if your goal is, like mine, to genuinely create durable changes in law firm culture to ensure or at least enable success and significance, then you must intrinsically care about empowering Black lawyers to achieve meaningful standing in their law firms. In other words, Black and minority lawyers must have access to developing portable business.

What I have learned in trying to achieve stable inclusion is that it is impossible to do so without a developmental work stream. Simply stated, it's impossible to develop great Black lawyers without first being able to hire them. Once hired we can train them on great files and mentor them. My principle focus (beyond elite client representation) is on the development of Black and racially diverse lawyers. Out of the 21 lawyers on my direct team, 15 are lawyers of color and 12 are women (out of approximately 200 firm lawyers). These numbers were not achieved by mistake, but based on a strategic plan and approach to hiring, development and retention. Certainly, these numbers and diverse hires directly reflect my standing in the firm. But more importantly, they reflect my ability to keep the team's plates full. This is all to underscore that it is absolutely impossible to achieve the promise of egality and inclusion unless we place Black lawyers in the path of developmentally enriching work. The ecosystem then takes care of itself.

Our current legal industry robs Black and racially diverse lawyers of the opportunity and exposure to business that allows them to both fulfill their need for challenging work and to build a book of business enabling them to increase their stature in their respective firms. That next step that they manufacture is the ability to identify and hire lawyers of color, whom they can take under their wings and develop. However, this later step does not and cannot regularly/predictably occur unless a partner has enough work to feed herself, let alone, others, and has ownership of the business on which she works. She cannot expand and develop others if she's constantly worried about her own firm survival because of career asphyxiation. Maslow's pyramidical hierarchy of needs is clear about this order. One cannot focus on self-actualization (the top of the pyramid) unless her psychological needs are first met (the two base stages of the pyramid). Those needs prominently include amongst others the basic need to feel personal security in employment.

Currently, Black lawyers are the equivalent of sharecroppers in the system of law firms. They have some limited opportunity to work on land that others own and to pay tribute to them for working on that land. However, their opportunity to own their own land or even the dream of becoming land barons is essentially foreclosed. Why is this distinction important? Well, an owner of land is endowed with the ability to hire other workers and help them develop into future land owners and thereby multiply his impact. A sharecropper is by design limited to enriching the owner of the land on which he toils daily.

To achieve meaningful change in the profession, GCs must be prepared to assist in dismembering a system that perpetuates the previous syndrome. You cannot continue to be complicit in such a system and scratch your heads as to why real changes in the profession aren't coming. You must create substantial and sustained systems for Black lawyers to have meaningful access to your work and business stream (albeit with ties related to the successful development of other minority lawyers). That is the only realistic  and consistent way that Black and minority lawyers can become owners and  developers of streams of talent that look like them.

Consider the following. Currently the U.S. Legal industry includes around 165,000 law firms that generate annual revenues of $140 billion. Approximately 150 law firms each generate $100m in revenue or more. So, easily $30b dollars of law firm revenues are generated by the top 150 firms, most of which is derived from representing large corporations. I would be shocked if Black and minority lawyers participate in even .5% ($150m) of that total. Keep in mind that I have not even included the other 100 to 150 other Am Law firms whose aggregated revenues would catapult the $30b to $35-40b dollars.

As my erudite teenage son habitually tells me, "real talk," I struggle with most GCs' claims – again both Black and White – concerning your commitment to equality and diversity. What actions and time have shown us is that a commitment to maintaining the current system of privilege is more important than equality. Sadly, I must honestly confess that I go through those moments of disappointment when I start to believe that there aren't enough GCs in our industry who truly cherish the principles of egality over those of privilege. But I'm grateful to God that some are left.

In parting, I quote James Baldwin's prophetic words: "Your history has led you to this moment, and you can only begin to change yourself by looking at what you are doing in the name of your history."

GCs, do you genuinely believe that Black Lawyers Matter? If so, no more meaningless pledges. Look into your own activities to establish systems to place Black and other lawyers of color in the path of opportunity. Start by:

(1) Taking accountability for your lack of success without blaming the profession,

(2) Look at how many lawyers of color you have placed in the path of meaningful opportunity. Do you even have one? Do you even know any of your lawyers of color by name, if you have any?

(3) Commit a significant annual amount of business to racially diverse originators (make it a stretch goal) with strings attached as noted above; enough with the scraps off the table approach,

(4) Show some intellectual curiosity by amassing data on the throngs of skilled Black lawyers available for retention,

(5) Communicate with the Black lawyers who do work on your matters for the benefit of others and tell them that you are committed to their success,

(6) Truly empower your team members to develop deep seeded relationships and hire external lawyers of color,

(7) Break out of your comfort zone and come experience the uncomfortable with us,

(8) Stop whispering about diversity, scream diversity and its importance,

(9) Black GCs and those of other colors, you have too long defaulted on your fear that you will be fired or thought less of by hiring people of color on meaningful matters. You have shown too little courage in the face of industry asphyxiation. Abandon this vestige of colonialism,

(10) Create goals that are based on objective metrics, share your information with the world,

(11) Stop hiding behind the trappings of the system you have "inherited" as an excuse for inaction as one cannot inherit from himself,

(12) Stop the cognitive dissonance in which you are engaged by accepting accolades for success, when you know that you have been anything but successful in achieving anything near true equality.

Make this profession everything it should be!!!

The opinion expressed below are those of Donald Prophete expressed in his individual capacity and in his advocacy for civil right changes and as a champion for meaningful and lasting changes in the legal profession.