When Spanish explorers roamed the United States in the 16th century, they entered New Mexico seeking gold and wealth equal to Mexico's Aztec treasures. Today, the state seems poised to enter a new era of wealth, due to its richness in diversity and heritage drawn from Native American, Hispanic, and other rich cultures. But what should be a good thing has caused two decades of introspection in the state's legal community, inspiring legal leaders to ask: In such a diverse state, why are minority attorneys inadequately represented in the profession? Are programs and activities directed toward recruitment and retention of minority law students doing enough?
Andrew G. Schultz, president and managing director of Rodey, Dickason, Sloan, Akin & Robb, P.A., based in Albuquerque, sums up the dilemma: "New Mexico has always had strong tri-cultural presence of Hispanics, Caucasians, and Native Americans. With that environment, it is ironic that achieving a good diversity balance is hard."
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2004 New Mexico was 43.5 percent Caucasian, 43.3 percent Hispanic, 10.1 percent American Indian/Alaska Native, and 2.4 percent African American (see the graph titled, "New Mexico Population Facts"). That is significantly more diverse than the rest of the country. But, according to the New Mexico State Bar Association's 2004 polling, its membership is 78 percent Caucasian, 15 percent Hispanic, and three percent Native American.
Lillian G. Apodaca, a partner at the four-attorney firm Bingham, Hurst, Apodaca & Wile, P.C., also a former president of the National Hispanic Bar Association, says that when it comes to hiring and promoting minority attorneys, the results are mixed. "Some law firms have done a really good job, and others have not. I am still surprised when I see a law firm that doesn't have a single Hispanic attorney."
Charles J. Vigil, a partner at Rodey, Dickason, Sloan, Akin & Robb, says the New Mexico legal landscape presents many challenges to firms and bar associations that are intent in seeing minority attorneys more adequately represented in the profession.
"There are a couple very big firms for New Mexico—roughly 70 lawyers—then a half dozen firms with 30 to 50 attorneys, and a lot of firms in the one-to-five range," says Vigil. Therefore, there are not a lot of spots for graduating law students who want to practice in the state.
Vigil, a former president of the State Bar of New Mexico, points out that one of the two largest firms is his own firm—Rodey, Dickason, Sloan, Akin & Robb—and the other large firm is Modrall, Sperling, Roehl, Harris & Sisk, P.A. Unlike most states, the majority of practitioners are in small or solo practices. Moreover, there is only one law school, the University of New Mexico (UNM) School of Law, churning out new graduates.
These challenges to diversifying the legal profession were first raised in 1987, when the state's Board of Bar Commissioners, under the leadership of Arturo Jaramillo, the first Hispanic state bar president, created a State Bar Task Force on Minority Involvement in the Profession. The Task Force was subsequently endorsed and co-sponsored by the New Mexico Supreme Court, and was given a broad mandate to investigate and report on the general status of minority attorneys and to identify barriers to complete integration of minority lawyers in the legal system.
Over a decade, the Task Force gathered historical and demographic data, conducted multiple surveys, and interviewed minority attorneys throughout New Mexico. It issued two reports on the Status of Minorities in the Profession, the first in 1990 (Task Force I) and the second in 1999 (Task Force II), when, according to the report, "The focus and momentum that drove the Standing Committee began to fade."
The recommendations for the profession included expanding recruitment of minorities and mentoring, and encouraging programs to enhance employment opportunities for minorities through the law school, state bar, and minority bars. As a member of the Board of Bar Commissioners that oversaw the reports, Vigil points out that the Task Force project's impetus was the very low bar passage rate for minorities and women in New Mexico, an issue on which the state has now made progress. "I think we have improved overall in New Mexico, but there is a lot more that we can do," says Vigil, who heads his law firm's diversity committee.
The Task Force's most striking conclusion was that the potential for a significant increase in the percentage of minority attorneys in New Mexico is limited by a number of factors. First, the Task Force II report found that any significant increase in the number of minority attorneys would likely have to come from outside of the state. But out-of-state applicants are hardly beating down the door, explain firm managers.
New Mexico Population Facts 2004 | ||
|
| New Mexico | USA |
| White | 84.7% | 80.4% |
| Black | 2.4% | 12.8% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 10.1% | 1.0% |
| Asian | 1.3% | 4.2% |
| Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander | 0.1% | 0.2% |
| Persons reporting two or more races | 1.5% | 1.5% |
| Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin | 43.3% | 14.1% |
| White, not Hispanic | 43.5% | 67.4% |
| Source: United States Census Bureau at http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/35000.html. | ||
And no wonder: "Lower than average salaries, static economic conditions, modest employment opportunities, and the lack of minority recruitment by New Mexico law firms and other employers discourage minorities from considering New Mexico as an option," states the report.
Vigil believes that there is another challenge-getting minorities into law school in the first place. "If you don't get the numbers flowing into the law schools, it's harder to make a difference-to get a higher number of minorities to graduate from high school, and to graduate from college, and then go to law school." According to New Mexico's practitioners, these are awfully high hurdles to overcome, but they all seem to agree that education is the key.
The report gave a glowing review to the UNM School of Law and its program to recruit, promote, and retain a diverse student body. The UNM School of Law currently has 34 full-time faculty members. Fifty percent are women, and 35 percent are minorities. Of the 2006 matriculating class of 119, 45 percent were women and 46 percent were minorities.
Increasing the Numbers
Most attorneys interviewed stated that despite its physical beauty, New Mexico has trouble attracting minority candidates because of limited job opportunities.
"There is a lot of competition for the most highly qualified women and minority lawyers out there. It is very hard for those of us in New Mexico to compete from a salary perspective for those candidates, because billing rates and therefore salaries are lower in New Mexico than they are in surrounding states like Arizona, Colorado, and Texas," says Vigil. Those in hiring roles at New Mexico firms see this as a problem because the top-notch minority law school graduates gravitate toward the opportunities in the larger cities and large law firms, bypassing smaller communities like Albuquerque and Santa Fe.
Mary T. Torres, a shareholder in one of the state's two largest firms—Modrall Sperling—and a former president of the State Bar of New Mexico, says, "We on the recruiting committee, and the entire firm, want as many attorneys of color to apply as we can get, so we try to get the word out to attorneys of color that Modrall Sperling wants to hear from them."
Torres also sees the economic obstacles to diversifying the profession. "They may have gone out of state to law school and they have huge loans," says Torres.
Schultz concurs, and asks: "Are you going to come to New Mexico, where your starting salary is $70,000? If a new attorney wants to live in the Southwest, that person can go to Arizona or Austin or Dallas and make $100,000. Our opportunity pool is so much more limited."
But, Schultz adds, "Given the constraints we operate within, both economically and size-wise, I think we do pretty good."
All three of these attorneys work proactively on behalf of their firms to recruit women and minority lawyers. "I am very focused on attracting qualified attorneys of color to our law firm. I am very aware of the fact that our clients expect to see a diverse attorney pool," says Torres. "What I tell these new recruits is what I like about our firm is the opportunity for mentoring that we offer. We also offer great benefits and have very flexible leave policies for those attorneys starting their families, which is a great attraction. I hope that all potential attorneys see that as a leading reason to come to Modrall Sperling."
At the Rodey firm, says Vigil, the primary goal is to increase the number of women and minority attorneys at the firm, and to make the work environment a good one for everybody, including women and minorities. "In our recruiting process, we try to cast as wide a net as possible if we are recruiting at law schools or if we are recruiting laterally," says Vigil.
But trying to achieve diversity through a lateral hiring process is not always the right path, says Schultz. "We tend to look more to our hiring class than our laterals," Schultz explains. He says that a firm the size of Rodey may only hire three to four lawyers a year; "That doesn't give me a lot of leeway. If I am Skadden [Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP] in New York, how many hundreds of people do I have applying to come work for me? My opportunity pool is enormous. Well, I don't have that luxury here."
Schultz sees three levels to inclusiveness: the "classic" definition of diversity, which seeks to achieve racial inclusiveness; the broader definition, which provides equal opportunities for males and females; and the broadest definition, which includes sexual orientation. Schultz says that in his experience, sexual orientation had never really been an issue or an impediment. The Rodey firm recently hired two GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) attorneys and looks forward to being able to tout the fact that the firm welcomes gender diverse attorneys.
Outreach outside the state is an important component of diversity, says William R. Keleher, a shareholder at Modrall Sperling. "We are taking steps to become more visible to minority candidates so that we have a chance to hire them. In particular, this year I attended the 17th Annual Diversity Leadership Council Forum: Pathways to Inclusion conference sponsored by the UNM Continuing Education and the Diversity Leadership Council." He also attended job fairs sponsored by the Council on Legal Education Opportunity and the Hispanic National Bar Association, and Keleher and other members of the firm's recruiting committee attended the Hispanic National Bar Association's job fair this September.
Another issue that mid-to-large firms in New Mexico face when trying to recruit is that many minority attorneys "see themselves as going out to save the world and the only way they can do that is if they are a solo practitioner," says Apodaca, who served on Task Force II.
"And particularly here in New Mexico, it is very easy to hang out your own shingle. Outside the largest county, Bernalillo County, you are almost going to have to do that, because it is such a rural state," she says.
Knocking Down Barriers
Despite these strides, some minority attorneys find attitudinal barriers from potential employers. Melanie P. Fritzsche, an enrolled member of Laguna Pueblo who is currently serving as the New Mexico Indian Bar Association president, says for Native Americans, it has been a long road. "Generally speaking, I have been practicing for 10 years, and when I graduated from law school, the Native Americans in law firms were mainly law clerks."
Fritzsche says the UNM School of Law has played a large part in the accession of Native Americans into the practice. "UNM law school has consistently recruited Native American students," she says, citing the law school's Indian law certificate program concentration and the Toby Grossman Indian Alumni Council Scholarship as two big attractors. But she points out that when she entered the practice, the market was very tight and jobs were scarce. As a result, Fritzsche encountered a barrier when potential employers encountered the Indian law certificate on her resume. "In particular, when I would go out and interview, if the firms were not looking for Indian law, it would hold me back," Fritzsche recalls.
She says the interviewers "assumed that Indian law was my only area of interest, or would be the only area that I could read and synthesize cases on, which I find narrow-minded. The skills to read cases in Indian law can apply to reading contract law. After all, I passed the bar; I can read property law. So I would eventually downplay my Indian law certificate when I was talking to everyday firms."
But, Fritzsche adds, "I hope that it has improved for Native American students today. If they have a focus, whether it is Indian law or family law, or even if they focused on bar classes, I would hope employers say, 'I have an opportunity to train and mentor somebody with a skill, regardless of what law may have interested them in law school.' " John Feldman, assistant dean of career and student services of the UNM School of Law, is very involved with the professional development of law students and graduates. He notes that firms are very much interested in bringing on board diverse lawyers, but some firms and judges unwittingly undercut their own efforts to recruit diverse students. Feldman says that if those looking to hire the best lawyers use rigid or arbitrary means to select whom to interview, for instance choosing to only interview students in the top 10 percent of their class, then they are missing out on some of the finest candidates.
Feldman says one solution is for firms to be more open-minded about the potential of the diverse students. Another option to diversifying the legal profession is participation in a program called "Summer Program for 1st Year Law Clerks." UNM has partnered with the New Mexico State Bar to provide students with an opportunity for broader career choices.
According to Schultz, the Rodey firm has been taking advantage of the various benefits of the program: "Over the years, we have ended up hiring two or three associates from the program." Feldman says that this type of enthusiasm for the program has made it stronger.
Schultz, who also teaches at the UNM School of Law, says he sat on an ad hoc committee that was reviewing the law school's admissions policies. One of the topics that the committee addressed was the steps that the law school could take to start attracting more minority students into pre-law programs.
Rosalie Fragoso, president of the New Mexico Hispanic Bar Association (NMHBA), says that her organization shares the vision of assisting minority students to become the best attorneys they can be. But even with that clear focus, there are challenges. "The opportunities in New Mexico are limited and often several minority attorneys are reaching for the same star," says Fragoso.
Fragoso notes that the NMHBA has achieved some level of success by fundraising for scholarships. "We started out by helping students with passing the bar exam, and now we have branched out to getting scholarships for books for 1Ls and 2Ls and scholarships to high school seniors who have an interest in the law."
The NMHBA also utilized a grant to put in place a summer law camp for students in middle school, which was held at the UNM. "This is an opportunity to give students a look at the profession. The organizers targeted small communities. Our overall goal is to empower Hispanics within our communities to seek leadership positions, whether it be politics or the legal profession," says Fragoso.
So far, this might be a promising area to pursue in growing the profession. The Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER) at the UNM conducts economic and demographic research and analysis related to New Mexico. According to New Mexico's 2000 Profile of General Demographic Characteristics, 13.6 percent of the population had achieved a bachelor's degree, and 9.8 percent had obtained a graduate or professional degree.1
Women Making Inroads
Another measure of success was that the Task Force II Report found that women attorneys were networking well within New Mexico law firms. Sarah M. Singleton, of Santa Fe-based Montgomery & Andrews, PA, began practicing in the state in 1974. She observes many more women in the profession now. "When I first started, we had a history of one woman judge," Singleton recalls. "Now we have women judges at all levels of the courts, including two New Mexico Supreme Court judges who are women."
Diversity at Rodney, Dickason, Sloan, Akin & Robb | |||
| Associates | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 20 | 14 | 13 |
| Minority Men | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Minority Women | 5 | 2 | 1 |
| White Women | 6 | 2 | 4 |
| Directors | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 |
| Total | 53 | 52 | 54 |
| Minority Men | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Minority Women | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| White Women | 13 | 12 | 12 |
Diversity at Modrall, Sperling, Roehl, Harris & Sisk, P.A. | |||
| Associates | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 28 | 24 | 21 |
| Minority Men | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Minority Women | 7 | 8 | 7 |
| White Women | 12 | 7 | 6 |
| Directors | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 |
| Total | 54 | 53 | 53 |
| Minority Men | 6 | 4 | 4 |
| Minority Women | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| White Women | 12 | 13 | 13 |
Torres adds, "There must be something in the water in New Mexico because Hispanic women attorneys here do not appear to be affected by any glass ceiling. New Mexico had the first Hispanic woman chief justice of the State Supreme Court, the first Hispanic woman federal judge, the first Hispanic woman attorney general, and the first Hispanic woman state bar president."
With a much higher level of women and minority judges than most states, Vigil says the challenge is retention. "The challenge for us is to develop policies for part-time attorneys or other policies that make it clear that we are a family-friendly environment, and that we are willing to make accommodations so that women attorneys don't leave for those kinds of reasons."
As for the future, according to Torres, the New Mexico State Bar is continuing the dialogue on diversity in the legal profession. In 2004 and 2005, it sponsored the Conference on Commonality.
Additionally, the State Bar's Committee on Diversity conducted a one-day conference to "further explore the common missions shared by voluntary and mandatory bar associations, and many other law-related organizations that impact the profession and the citizens we serve. From this, we will continue ongoing dialogue and the development of action plans designed to more effectively integrate our richly diverse membership into the activities, programs, opportunities, and leadership of the profession."
As for another Task Force on the Status of Minorities in the Profession, according to Vigil, a decision recently was made to launch a third part of the project, with another report slated to be issued by 2009.
NOTE
1. See 2000 Profile of General Demographic Characteristics, at http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/35000.html.
Elisabeth Frater, Esq. is a freelance writer based in Napa, Calif.
From the September/October 2006 issue of Diversity & The Bar®