There's been some chatter on this board about Eric Holder, and whether or not President Elect Obama made a mistake by selecting an attorney at the high powered law firm of Covington and Burling. In response, a fellow community member penned this eloquent diary in defense of large corporate law firms.
I am not going to attack Eric Holder's credentials. He seems like a good pick although the Republicans will probably try to make a big deal about the Marc Rich pardon. Nor will I dispute that there are many well qualified, ethical people who work at large corporate law firms. Nevertheless, I think those rushing to defend and praise large firms like Covington & Burling miss the point. It's not that they're bad people, or unqualified. It's that picking from them essentially reinforces the foundation that decision makers in this country must go through the traditional and narrow, channels of influence and power in this country.
First, a bit of personal disclosure. I too, am an attorney. I went to a top ten law school. Like many of my colleagues, I went in talking about practicing "public interest" law. And like many students, I got caught up in the hype of trying to interview for as many high paying corporate law firm jobs as possible. It's incredibly tempting. There's this bizarre process called "Early Interview Week." In your second year of law school, before you even start your classes, the schools line up hundreds of law firms at which you can interview. Based on nothing but your grades after one year of law school and a writing sample, you can get a job working for a summer at a top firm. Almost all the people who work as a summer associate for a law firm get invited back to work full time after their third year. It's really nice knowing that, early in your second year of law school, you can all but be assured of having a nice high paying job when you graduate. Many people who were hyper-competitive their first year feel that they can coast after that. As for positions in the public sector, or non-profit field, those places usually don't know who they can hire until they have an actual opening up. The law schools do everything they can to encourage everyone to take advantage of the early interview process. They can then boast of high placement statistics and high starting salaries of their graduates.
I'm lucky because, frankly, I could never really get into the whole game. I couldn't convince anyone that I really wanted to do this. I did get a summer job at a small firm that no longer exists specializing in Reinsurance Law. I hated it and it showed, despite my attempts to fit into the whole culture. So my third year I looked in the public interest sector. Ultimately, I did take a job at another small firm which had some neat clients. They represented Mitchell-Lama middle income cooperatives, and various corporate entities that came out of the labor movement (such as Amalgamated Bank of New York). We also had some work from the Estate of J.R.R. Tolkien. Still, it wasn't really what I wanted to do. I left that job after a year and a half to practice labor and employment law at a firm that represents unions and individual employees. I still do that work today.
I make about one third of what my colleagues do. I realize that my path is really more of a middle ground. My practice is a private, for profit practice and the income is not bad. There are many others who have given up a heck of a lot more, like my classmates who chose to work at Legal Services or a public defender. I almost did take my first job at a Legal Services clinic in upstate New York. I backed out because, quite simply, I could not see myself in my 20s living by myself in the exurbs on poverty level wages just to prove how committed I was.
I know plenty of people who did, and continue, to work at corporate law firms. They are not bad people. This summer, at a conference of plaintiff's employment lawyers, we had a panel of former management attorneys who were now on our side. One of them pointed out that even at firms committed to representing management, you have many Democrats who would be voting for Barack Obama. Another one concurred and said "Yeah, if the election were held at my old firm, Obama would KILL." (And of course, Obama DID kill!). I am sure that, at the Covington and Burlings of the world, there are plenty of great attorneys who can do great things.
Tempting as it is, I will not take the bait to discuss whether the pro bono work performed by these firms outweighs the other work being performed that is of, shall we say, less redeeming. I will simply note that, putting aside cases challenging the Bush administrations own actions, just about every Supreme Court decision that this community has expressed outrage over, such as Ledbetter v. Goodyear, was procured by corporate law firms.
My concern is different. It's this attitude that the corporate law world is our "best and brightest" and that it's a good thing that President Elect Obama recruits his talent from that world. So far, all of Obama's major prospective appointments have either been prior high ranking politicians or individuals who work with major corporate interests or both. The message here is that, if you want to have a part in bring about change, you have to work for the established elite.
Obama's picks seem to be pretty good so far, so I can't gripe too much. But honestly, do we really need to start singing the praise of corporate lawyers, as if these people aren't well enough represented in Washington? No, I'm not for faux "Joe the Plumber" populism. But how about some community development bankers as part of the Treasury team? How about some public health officials at HHS? How about some civil rights leaders at Justice? How about some labor leaders at DOL? How about some actual educators at Education?
Or, for that matter, how about picking some "Community Organizers" for some of these jobs? Remember when we all stuck up for them? I'll be happy to take an Eric Holder if I can get a few dozen young Obama types to make sure that this administration sends the message that there is more than one path to helping bring about the change we can believe in.