Religiously Inspired Hate Is Still Hate

As regular readers of this blog well know, one of my pet peeves is the undeserved deference that religion is afforded both by the media and by America's political establishment.  Take something that would never otherwise be respected or catered to and wrap the smoke screen of religious belief around it and suddenly it becomes acceptable and critics are labeled as "anti-religion."  Throughout history all kinds of atrocities and rape and pillaging have been justified because of conflicting religious beliefs.  Hate and, in some cases, genocide don't suddenly become something different merely because the perpetrators point to the Bible or Koran for justification.  It is long past time that the "get out of jail free" given to hate filled religious extremists end and their words and actions be judged for what they are regardless of the claimed justification on "deeply held religious belief."  A piece in Huffington Post looks at a controversy in Canada  over the accreditation fight over Trinity Western University ("TWU") proposed law school.  TWU is a Christian extremist institution that openly discriminates against the LGBT community.  Properly, the Canadian accreditation bodies have to date refused to approve TWU application because of its discriminatory policies.  Now, three courts will determine whether such refusal was appropriate.  Here are article excerpts:

The complete picture of what occurred in Orlando last week, of what motivated the worst mass shooting in United States' history, is complicated and may never fully emerge.

But what we do know is that the shooter targeted an LGBTQ club, and that most of the people he murdered and injured belonged to the Queer community. We also know that this was not a coincidence. Gay, lesbian, and transgendered folks in the United States, and elsewhere, are among the most vilified -- the most hated -- minorities in the world.

In Canada, courts in three provinces are poised to issue decisions related to Trinity Western University's ongoing efforts to establish an accredited law school in British Columbia. TWU, as many are aware, requires its students, staff, and faculty to sign a contract promising not to engage in "sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman." The University cites biblical passages vilifying and condemning homosexuality to support its policy of discrimination against gays and lesbians. The passages refer to homosexuality as "vile" and "shameful."

Law Societies in Ontario, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia decided that TWU's law degree could not be accredited because the University excludes gays and lesbians. TWU appealed those decisions and courts in each of these provinces are now faced with striking the right balance between TWU's freedom of religion and the equality rights of sexual minorities. Getting this balance right is critically important.

The issue is not whether TWU should be able to teach law. The issue is whether public bodies, like law societies, should accredit TWU's law degree given its discriminatory policy. These three law societies were rightly concerned about the detrimental impact on the equality interests of sexual minorities that would occur if they accredited an institution that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation.

Why was it right for them to deny accreditation? Because, unfortunately, our society remains filled with hatred for sexual minorities. This is not, as Justice Jamie Campbell of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court grossly mischaracterized the issue, a matter of "hurt feelings." Queer people are beaten, raped, and murdered because of our sexual orientation and gender identities.

From the perspective of those of us who remain the subject of this disgust and detestation, it matters not whether this hatred is born of religious belief. The effects of religiously inspired homophobia are every bit as real as homophobia motivated by fear of difference or intolerance of others. Practices of exclusion based on views that perpetuate this type of hatred, whether intentionally or inadvertently, are no less damaging when supported by scripture.

Public institutions, such as law societies, are obligated not to put their stamp of approval on an organization that excludes one of the most vilified minorities in Canada and around the world. They are legally obligated not to contribute to the hatred of sexual minorities.

This does not mean that TWU should be prevented from practicing its beliefs or from teaching law from its evangelical Christian perspective. But as with all rights, there are limits to freedom of religion. For example, it must be balanced with equality. Requiring public bodies to accredit an institution that discriminates against a despised minority, a group subject to the most violent hate crimes in Canada, would allow freedom of religion to trump equality.

The mass murder of gays and lesbians that occurred last week in Orlando provides a horrific example of what can occur when a country allows one of its constitutional rights to run amok.  Let's hope that the British Columbia Court of Appeal, Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, and the Ontario Court of Appeal recognize that a just and humane balance between freedom of religion and equality protections for sexual minorities draws a line between what a religious organization can do privately and what our public bodies will accept. Let's hope these courts recognize that offering state sanction to an organization that discriminates against gays and lesbians because of a religious belief that homosexuality is "vile" and "shameful" would contribute to the kind of hatred that makes LGBTQ communities the target of such virulent homophobia.

Here in Virginia we see two law schools that routinely use follow practices  like those advanced by TWU.  Regent University and Liberty University both  have law schools that support hate and bigotry as part of their agenda.  Sadly, both received accreditation from the American Bar Association.  Shame on the ABA. 

A Bunch of Law Schools Are About to Close

There is a huge over supply of attorneys and with the huge down turn in the legal industry during the Great Recession, it's getting harder and harder for newly minted attorneys to find jobs to repay the massive debt they have incurred, often going to bottom tier law schools - why does Liberty University's law school immediately spring to mind? - and leaving them in severe financial straits.  Fortunately, younger folks seem to be waking up to the reality that law is perhaps not the best occupation.  The downside (depending on one's view) is that a number of law schools are facing closure.  A piece in Slate looks at the situation.  Here are some highlights:

In the world of law schools, every day is sort of like Black Friday.  OK, slight exaggeration. But with applications in free fall, schools are locked in a brutal competition to attract students who might theoretically one day be qualified to sit for a bar exam. And that, the New York Times reports today, has meant slashing tuition and dolling out discounts. At Northwestern University School of Law, one of the top ranked institutions in the country, “74 percent of first-year students this academic year received financial aid, compared with only 30 percent in 2009,” the paper notes. The University of Iowa, University of Arizona, and Penn State University have cut their prices. J.D.s are on sale!

It seems fairly obvious that some law schools are going to have to close in the not too distant future. Between the fall of 2010 and fall of 2013, enrollments dropped 24 percent. This year’s crop of new students should be even smaller. And while schools are doing everything in their power to pare back expenses and prop up their head counts, it seems like someone is going to fall victim to a collapsing demand. “I don’t get how the math adds up for the number of schools and the number of students,” Northwestern Dean Daniel Rodriguez, told the Times. That’s because it probably won’t.

This has been a subject of fearful discussion in the legal academy for a while. Already, Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley School of Law, a notorious diploma mill, has been forced to close its Ann Arbor campus due to sagging enrollment. But, as University of St. Thomas School of Law professor Jerry Organ writes, the history of another graduate school bust suggests bottom-tier schools might not be the only ones affected.

Many institutions opened law schools precisely because they were supposed to be cash cows and won’t be particularly psyched to suddenly start subsidizing them. Meanwhile, qualified applicants are now harder to find for schools with some semblance of standards, because the biggest application declines have occurred among students who scored in the middle-to-high range on the LSAT.

There are plenty of lousy lawyers out there and many of the younger ones - perhaps out of financial necessity - seem inclined to engage in less than ethical conduct.

Law School Applications Continue to Fall

Apparently more college age individuals are waking up to what many attorneys of many years have known for years:  The legal profession sucks.  High stress, much lower pay than most people assume, and horrible hours are the norm in private practice.  Not that government positions and in-house positions are sweetness and light either.  All of which explains why attorneys have among the highest alcohol and drug abuse problems and a high suicide rate.  As a consequence, especially given the insanely high expense of going to law school, applications to law schools are down for the third year in a row.  The Washington Post looks at this trend.  Here are highlights:

The number of people applying to U.S. law schools dropped nationwide for the third year in a row, prompting some law schools to slash the size of their entering classes.

As of May 17, about 55,760 people had applied to American Bar Association-accredited law schools for the 2013-14 school year — down 13.4 percent from 2012, according to data compiled by the Law School Admission Council.

Law school enrollment is also trending downward, with 48,700 people entering their first year of law school in fall 2011 — 7 percent below the previous year, and the first significant decline in a decade. The council has yet to compile nationwide enrollment data for fall 2012.

Last fall, George Washington University Law School cut its number of first-year law students from 474 to 398, the smallest in a decade and the second year in a row the school reduced its class size.

The drop in applications follows a period in which too many new lawyers chased too few jobs. The 2008 economic collapse forced many of the nation’s largest law firms to dramatically reduce the number of first-year lawyers they hired in 2009 and 2010. At the same time, law school enrollment continued to climb — hitting a 10-year high of 52,500 in fall 2010 — leading to the lowest levels of employment for new graduates since 1996, a growing proportion of them carrying loans of $120,000 or more.

Cornblatt said growing concerns about the legal job market and law school debt are driving away less-serious potential applicants who a few years ago might have been eager to enter law school to weather the recession.

“There’s been so much noise about the legal job market and how tough it is, whether it’s worth the tuition and borrowing all that money,” he said. “That group of people who weren’t as committed just aren’t applying now. . . . The rest of world won’t weep over fewer people wanting to be lawyers, but for people like me who do admissions, it creates challenges. There are fewer top applicants and the same number of law schools fighting over a smaller pool of highly qualified applicants than four years ago.”

 Hopefully, the trend continues.  There are far too many young attorneys fighting over jobs and willing to stretch the ethical rules to pander to clients.  It's not a pretty picture.

Law Schools’ Applications Fall, Tuition Costs Soar and Jobs Are Scarce

Having been trapped by circumstances in the legal profession for decades I welcome reports that law school applications are plummeting.  The truth is that there are too many lawyers and from my experience, many of the younger ones are only too ready to cut ethical corners in their quest to make a buck.  Such pressure, of course, often tracks back directly to the insanely high debts they incurred going to law school in the first place while career prospects have greatly soured over the last 5 to 8 years.   Many other attorneys like myself who have come to realize what a lousy profession they are in dream of somehow escaping the world of law.  It's not a coincidence that attorneys have among the highest suicide rates of any profession.  The hours are horrible, clients increasingly expect 24/7 service and the pay outside of the mega firms and ambulance chasing personal injury firms isn't what it used to be.  The New York Times has another article in its continuing expose of  the reality of the legal profession that ought to be read by every individual considering law school.  Here are highlights:

Law school applications are headed for a 30-year low, reflecting increased concern over soaring tuition, crushing student debt and diminishing prospects of lucrative employment upon graduation. 

As of this month, there were 30,000 applicants to law schools for the fall, a 20 percent decrease from the same time last year and a 38 percent decline from 2010, according to the Law School Admission Council. Of some 200 law schools nationwide, only 4 have seen increases in applications this year. In 2004 there were 100,000 applicants to law schools; this year there are likely to be 54,000. 

Such startling numbers have plunged law school administrations into soul-searching debate about the future of legal education and the profession over all.

“Thirty years ago if you were looking to get on the escalator to upward mobility, you went to business or law school. Today, the law school escalator is broken.”  

After the normal dropout of some applicants, the number of those matriculating in the fall will be about 38,000, the lowest since 1977, when there were two dozen fewer law schools, according to Brian Z. Tamanaha of Washington University Law School, the author of “Failing Law Schools.”

The drop in applications is widely viewed as directly linked to perceptions of the declining job market. Many of the reasons that law jobs are disappearing are similar to those for disruptions in other knowledge-based professions, namely the growth of the Internet. Research is faster and easier, requiring fewer lawyers, and is being outsourced to less expensive locales, including West Virginia and overseas. 

Last spring, the American Bar Association released a study showing that within nine months of graduation in 2011, only 55 percent of those who finished law school found full-time jobs that required passage of the bar exam. 

“Students are doing the math,” said Michelle J. Anderson, dean of the City University of New York School of Law. “Most law schools are too expensive, the debt coming out is too high and the prospect of attaining a six-figure-income job is limited.”

“In the ’80s and ’90s, a liberal arts graduate who didn’t know what to do went to law school,” Professor Henderson of Indiana said. “Now you get $120,000 in debt and a default plan of last resort whose value is just too speculative. Students are voting with their feet. There are going to be massive layoffs in law schools this fall. We won’t have the bodies we need to meet the payroll.” 

I feel some sorrow for the new attorneys who are finding themselves in a career nightmare.  If they are smart, they will find a way out of law early enough to find other careers.   For those of us older attorneys, we are sadly trapped unless we win the lottery.

Liberty University's Anti-Gay Curriculum - LAW 765 Sexual Behavior and the Law

One has to wonder at times as to what bizarre psychological issues drive some of the Christianists to do nothing but seemingly obsess abouts gays 24/7. One of the most obsessed - and I would posit most mentally ill - is Matt Barber who is now ensconced as Associate Dean at Liberty University's so-called law school. Liberty University is a blight on the Commonwealth of Virginia and is a breeding ground for religious extremists. Now, Barber is teaching what amounts to an anti-gay/revisionist history course entitled "Sexual Behavior and the Law" which Barber describes as "addressing public policy issues, legal issues and so forth from a Judeo-Christian perspective and looking at our true legal history and the true history of public policy in this country." Right Wing Watch has this to say about Barber's batshitery:
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There are few "mainstream" Religious Right activists operating today who are as militantly anti-gay as Matt Barber - in fact, he owes his entire current career to the fact that he got fired for being anti-gay.
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And so now, in addition to using his position as Director of Cultural Affairs with Liberty Counsel from which to launch his incessant anti-gay attacks, Barber is also an Associate Dean at the Jerry Falwell-founded Liberty Law School.
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And if you were thinking that this might just be some sort of administrative position, rest assured that it is not and that Barber is actually imparting his anti-gays views to LU students as an instructor.

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As for Barber's credentials to be teaching at a law school, like most Christianist mouth pieces and "experts," he has none. It's all about anti-gay vitriol and lofty titles to give the appearance of credibility. One has to wonder what kind of nutjobs make up the rest of the Liberty faculty. True credentials apparently are not required as Right Wing Watch explains here:
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Once upon a time, Barber was an manager for Allstate Insurance until he was fired for writing anti-gay pieces for right-wing websites like The Conservative Voice and Men's News Daily. That firing transformed him into a right-wing hero and he quickly became Policy Director for Cultural Issues with Concerned Women for America, where he continued his militantly anti-gay diatribes. He was eventually lured away from CWA by the Liberty Counsel where he became Director of Cultural Affairs, as well as the Associate Dean for Career and Professional Development at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.

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In just four years, Barber has gone from an unknown employee at an insurance company to an associate dean at a right-wing university thanks solely to his unrelenting hatred of gays.

Is Law School a Losing Game?

I have been a licensed attorney for over 33 years and I can speak from experience that law is a brutal profession over all that to be "successful" - at least in a big firm setting - typically means abandoning one's family to a large extent in order to put in horrifically long hours in exchange for making partner and, if one is lucky and enough of a suck up (I'm not good at the latter attribute), hopefully making some decent money. Or at least that's how it used to be before the current economic meltdown which has left thousands of attorneys suddenly unemployed and new law school graduates unable to find jobs. Yes, being an attorney can allow one to work to right wrongs and aid the less fortunate, but that's not where the money is and funding for such public interest work is far from what it should be. As a result, I have always told my children that I'd never pay a penny for them to go to law school. In the case of my youngest daughter who is my office manager and paralegal, she's seen the ugliness of the profession and would never make the mistake of going to law school. The New York Times looks at the bleak landscape for many new law school graduates. Here are highlights:
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IF there is ever a class in how to remain calm while trapped beneath $250,000 in loans, Michael Wallerstein ought to teach it.
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Mr. Wallerstein, who can’t afford to pay down interest and thus watches the outstanding loan balance grow, is in roughly the same financial hell as people who bought more home than they could afford during the real estate boom. But creditors can’t foreclose on him because he didn’t spend the money on a house. He spent it on a law degree. And from every angle, this now looks like a catastrophic investment.
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Mr. Wallerstein and a generation of J.D.’s face the grimmest job market in decades. Since 2008, some 15,000 attorney and legal-staff jobs at large firms have vanished, according to a Northwestern Law study. Associates have been laid off, partners nudged out the door and recruitment programs have been scaled back or eliminated.
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And with corporations scrutinizing their legal expenses as never before, more entry-level legal work is now outsourced to contract temporary employees, both in the United States and in countries like India. It’s common to hear lawyers fret about the sort of tectonic shift that crushed the domestic steel industry decades ago.
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“Enron-type accounting standards have become the norm,” says William Henderson of Indiana University, one of many exasperated law professors who are asking the American Bar Association to overhaul the way law schools assess themselves. “Every time I look at this data, I feel dirty.” . . . . A law grad, for instance, counts as “employed after nine months” even if he or she has a job that doesn’t require a law degree. Waiting tables at Applebee’s? You’re employed. Stocking aisles at Home Depot? You’re working, too.
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Number-fudging games are endemic, professors and deans say, because the fortunes of law schools rise and fall on rankings, with reputations and huge sums of money hanging in the balance. You may think of law schools as training grounds for new lawyers, but that is just part of it. They are also cash cows. Tuition at even mediocre law schools can cost up to $43,000 a year.
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“If you’re a law school and you add 25 kids to your class, that’s a million dollars, and you don’t even have to hire another teacher,” says Allen Tanenbaum, a lawyer in Atlanta . . .
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[T]he glut of diplomas, the dearth of jobs and those candy-coated employment statistics have now yielded a crop of furious young lawyers who say they mortgaged their future under false pretenses.
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But so far, the warnings have been unheeded. Job openings for lawyers have plunged, but law schools are not dialing back enrollment. About 43,000 J.D.’s were handed out in 2009, 11 percent more than a decade earlier, and the number of law schools keeps rising — nine new ones in the last 10 years, and five more seeking approval to open in the future.
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Apparently, there is no shortage of 22-year-olds who think that law school is the perfect place to wait out a lousy economy and the gasoline that fuels this system — federally backed student loans — is still widely available. But the legal market has always been obsessed with academic credentials, and today, few students except those with strong grade-point averages at top national and regional schools can expect a come-hither from a deep-pocketed firm. Nearly everyone else is in for a struggle.
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“I think the student loans that kids leave law school with are more scandalous than payday loans,” says Andrew Morriss, a law professor at the University of Alabama. “And because it’s so easy to get a student loan, law school tuition has grossly outpaced the rate of inflation for the last 20 years. It’s now astonishingly high.”
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Today, countless J.D.’s are paying their bills with jobs that have nothing do with the law, and they are losing ground on their debt every day. Stories are legion of young lawyers enlisting in the Army or folding pants at Lululemon. Or baby-sitting, like Carly Rosenberg, of the Brooklyn Law School class of 2009.
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You get the drift of the article which is scathing in its treatment of law schools which "cook the numbers" to project a cheery job market forecast that bears no resemblance to reality. Add to this picture the fact that if one is openly gay, you will be largely unemployable in many red states unless you go the root of starting your own firm - something far less easy than most contemplate. Especially, in a down economy.

Continued Homophobia in the Legal Profession

ENDA appears to be going nowhere this year and as a result LGBT employees in a majority of states - including ever backwards Virginia - will continue to have no employment non-discrimination protections. That includes LGBT attorneys and paralegals who either cannot get hired by law firms in the first place or who must live in fear in the professional closet so as to not be fired from their jobs. While this post will focus on Virginia, the problem identified occurs all over the country where states do not protect LGBT citizens from employment discrimination. As I have noted before, I was forced from a large law local firm in 2004 because I was gay - true, they tried to dress it up as something else, but one did not need to be a NASA scientist to know what was going on - and I have a good friend who experienced a similar fate when his sexual orientation was discovered at another prominent local law firm.

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The major disconnect in this wide spread picture is that most prominent law schools require interviewing employers as a condition to recruiting on campus to abide by employment non-discrimination policies that bar discrimination based on sexual orientation. In Virginia, the leading law schools, The University of Virginia School of Law (my alma mater), The College of William & Mary School of Law, The Washington & Lee University School of Law, and The University of Richmond School of Law all have such policies (click on the school to view its respective policy). Research has shown that Virginia’s mega law firms – Williams Mullen, P.C., McGuire Woods, L.L.P., and Hunton & Williams - actually have such policies in place at their firms, as does Leclair Ryan. Yet, the majority of Virginia law firms that conduct on campus interviews do NOT actually have official non-discrimintation policies that comply with the law school mandated non-discrimination policies. In fact, two local law firms - Wolcott Rivers Gates and Willcox & Savage, P.C. - have fired LGBT staff due to their sexual orientation.

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Of the other locally based law firms, one - Kaufman & Canoles, P.C. - has a nondiscrimination policy that on its face excludes sexual orientation. The rest as well as some in other parts of Virginia have non discernible non-discrimination policy whatsoever: Vandeventer Black, L.L.P., Watt Tieder Hoffar & Fitzgerald LLP, Taylor & Walker, P.C., Christian & Barton, P.C., Hirschler Fleischer, P.C., and Huff, Poole & Mahoney, P.C (Taliban Bob McDonnell's former firm). Obviously, something is seriously wrong with this picture if these firms are allowed to recruit on campus at leading laws apparently giving a wink and a nod to the law schools' non-discrimination policies. As a result, I sent the following letter to the deans of four of Virginia's top law schools asking how and why this situation exists in light of their law school's respective non-discrimination policies:

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VIA E-MAIL AND U. S. MAIL
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Paul G. Mahoney, Dean - pmahoney@virginia.edu
University of Virginia School of Law
580 Massie Road
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-1738
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Davison M. Douglas, Dean - dmdoug@wm.edu
William and Mary School of Law
P.O. Box 8795
Williamsburg, Virginia 23187-8795
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Rodney A. Smolla, Dean - smollar@wlu.edu
Washington and Lee University
School of Law
Sydney Lewis Hall
Lexington, Virginia 24450
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John G. Douglass, Dean - jdougla2@richmond.edu
University of Richmond School of Law
28 Westhampton Way
University of Richmond, Virginia 23173
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Re: Employer Recruiting Non-Discrimination Policy
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Gentlemen:
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To introduce myself, I am an attorney (UVA Law 1977) admitted to the Virginia, Alabama, and Texas bars. To my knowledge, I am one of only two (2) publicly and professionally “out” LGBT attorneys in the Hampton Roads area – a region with a population of approximately 1.5 million residents. I am also a contributor to LGBT/political blogs. Because of my extensive involvement in the Hampton Roads LGBT community, I believe I can safely say that none of the large local law firms have any “out” attorneys. A few have LGBT attorneys who live in the closet if you will and live in fear of being fired should their sexual orientation become known.
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As the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (“ENDA”) continues to languish in the U.S. Congress, LGBT Virginians continue to have no legal employment protections against being terminated from employment or not hired in the first place due to their sexual orientation. This situation is not unique to Virginia and holds true in many other states. Each of your law schools have put in place policies that require recruiting law firms and corporations to agree to adhere to a non-discrimination policy that bars employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. For this I and others in the LGBT community applaud your institutions.
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Unfortunately, there is a major disconnect it seems when it comes to law firms actually adhering to the non-discrimination policies required by your institutions. Research has shown that while Virginia’s mega law firms – Williams Mullen, P.C., McGuire Woods, L.L.P., and Hunton & Williams - actually have such policies in place at their firms, the majority of law firms do not. Instead, they either have a policy that does not include sexual orientation – e.g., Kaufman & Canoles, P.C. – or have no stated policy that I can identify: Willcox & Savage, P.C., Vandeventer Black, L.L.P., Watt Tieder Hoffar & Fitzgerald LLP, Wolcott Rivers Gates, P.C., Taylor & Walker, P.C., Christian & Barton, P.C., Hirschler Fleischer, P.C., and Huff, Poole & Mahoney, P.C. To make matters worse, two of the named firms - Willcox & Savage, P.C and Wolcott Rivers Gates, P.C – have in the past forced LGBT individuals from those firms because of their sexual orientation.
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I am writing you for two reasons. First, I would like your reactions to the manner in which the majority of Virginia’s law firms seem to fail to follow through on their supposed agreement to abide by your institutions’ nondiscrimination policies. Second, I would like your thoughts on what your institutions can do to actually enforce your respective policies. For example, should law firms be required to have formal non-discrimination policies in place in order to interview on campus? Will there be real consequences for firms that fire attorneys and staff based on sexual orientation?
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I plan on doing a story on this issue that will be both published on some blogs as well as circulated to other writers at news outlets, bloggers and activists. I look forward to your responses. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
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Sincerely,
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If and when I receive responses from these law schools I will post one or more updates. Meanwhile, I would encourage others to contact other prominent law schools and ask how/why they allow homophobic law firms to recruit on campus notwithstanding the law school's employment non-discrimination policies for would be employers.

LGBT Attorneys Talk of Experiences

The fact that LGBT attorneys exist is slowly coming to be recognized in some quarters, including the American Bar Association which has now created a Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. Sadly, in Virginia, the Virginia State Bar acts as if LGBT attorneys do not exist and certainly are not something to be discussed. Similarly, even though the Virginia Canons of Judicial Conduct requires judges to be unbiased based on sexual orientation or else recuse themselves from a case involving LGBT litigants, virtually NOTHING is done to enforce these requirements and LGBT litigants are crucified for their sexual orientation regularly. Indeed, of five gays I know personally currently going through divorces, only one had a judge that did not take the divorcing husband's sexual orientation into consideration and use it as a reason to treat him with extreme harshness.

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The Windy City Times has a story that looks at the experiences of some LGBT attorneys who - like myself- in some instances found themselves unwelcome because of their sexual orientation and their unwillingness to live in the closet. The irony, of course, is that most top law schools have anti-discrimination policies that interviewing law firms must sign whereby they swear that they will not discriminate against hiring and promoting LGBT attorneys. In Virginia, law firms sign these statements and then go right ahead and discriminate - one of the reasons I have told LGBT law students to seek careers outside of Virginia. Here are some story highlights:

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Lawyers talked about their experiences in school and work in "The Gay Bar: LGBT Attorneys in the Profession," a forum held July 31 at the Hotel Intercontinental, 505 N. Michigan, as part of the American Bar Association's annual meeting. The attorneys spoke as the ABA's Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, chaired by San Francisco attorney Jeffrey G. Gibson, presided over the event and listened intently to the experiences.

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Orr talked about working with an investment bank in Virginia—a place where he did not feel welcome. "They started off each day with a prayer," he said. When he eventually ended up with the Washington, D.C., office of Baker & McKenzie, he said, " [ the firm ] didn't know what they were getting," as the audience laughed. Orr indicated that he made it quite clear from the start that he was gay. He admitted that the firm has its challenges: "In order to have a breakthrough ... firms need to understand what diversity means."

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Brent Adams, acting secretary of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, talked about attending the New York School University of Law as well as working at the Chicago law firm Katten Muchin Roseman ( then known as Katten Muchin Zavis ). Adams said that he was very out in law school and at work, serving as chair of the Bisexual Gay & Lesbian Law Students Association—commonly referred to as "Big Lisa." He received only one callback when he applied with ( mostly ) Chicago firms—from Katten—although he had no evidence that homophobia was involved in the lack of positive responses. When he was at Katten, a hiring partner asked me where he was from, and Adams responded, "Oklahoma." He laughed and said, "Well you know they only raise two things in Oklahoma." ( For those who don't know, the answer to that saying is "steers and queers." ) Adams informed his own mentor about what happened, and the partner visited him the next day "to see how he was doing."

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"When I came out to the lesbian and gay law students as transgender, I was not met with the welcome atmosphere that I had anticipated," Levasseur continued. "One student asked me invasive and inappropriate questions about my genitals. Another said, 'I just don't get it.' ... I quickly realized that the community that had once been my support no longer included me. I didn't know where to turn."
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A particular low point occurred when "during my first year, as I walked from the parking lot towards the law school building, an SUV sped up towards me as if to hit me," he said. "I jumped out of the way just in time and turned to see three of my classmates, future attorneys, in the car, laughing. At the time, I was not immune to threats on my life based on my gender expression. I just didn't expect it at my law school."

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The above quotes give you a sense of how far the legal profession has to go in actually embracing diversity. States like Virginia - and anti-gay law firms - are losing many talented and innovate people because they continue to put more store in religious based discrimination rather than the Constitution's promise of equality. Sadly, medicine and accounting seem even more bigoted that the legal community.

Will Recession Force Restructuring of Legal Profession?

An interesting column is in today's New York Times that looks at the legal profession as it is buffeted by the recession and corporate clients seeking to drastically control their legal expenses. The current set up of large law firms is like a plantation system where the partners oversee the laborers made up of the associates. In some cases the partners do little - the real work is done by associates - yet bill crazy amounts for their inflated time. Meanwhile, associates are pressured to bill literally every minute of their time to generate required billable hours and collect fees. Associates often feel themselves to be like rats on a wheel with no way of exiting. Meanwhile life among the partners is no cake walk either and in many firms life among the partner ranks is like being in a piranha tank. Ethics and competence frequently means little and an amoral "rainmaker" may be highly successful while good, ethical attorneys fall by the way side. Of course in conservative areas of the country, being gay is a career killer (no large law firm in this area of 1.6 million people has an openly gay attorney to my knowledge despite the fact that all of the top law schools in the state require firms interviewing on campus to have a non-discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation). Despite the public perception, law is not a career I would recommend to anyone - at least not private practice as it currently exists. Here are some column highlights:

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The economic downturn is hitting the legal world hard. American Lawyer is calling it “the fire this time” and warning that big firms may be hurtling toward “a paradigm-shifting, blood-in-the-suites” future. The Law Shucks blog has a “layoff tracker,” and it is grim reading. Top firms are rapidly thinning their ranks, and several — including Heller Ehrman, a venerable 500-plus-lawyer firm founded in 1890 — have closed.

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The employment pains of the legal elite may not elicit a lot of sympathy in the broader context of the recession, but a lot of hard-working lawyers have been blindsided, including young associates who are suddenly finding themselves with six-figure student-loan debts and no source of income.

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The silver lining, if there is one, is that the legal world may be inspired to draw blueprints for the 21st century. The changes are likely to begin with compensation. . . . Lower pay should mean that associates will not need to work the grueling hours many have been forced to. And it will mean less pressure to go into private practice for law graduates who would rather do something else.

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Clients are also likely to benefit — and consumers, since legal fees are built into the cost of almost everything. Even before the downturn, big-firm clients, led by the Association of Corporate Counsel, were pushing to phase out the billable hour — which can go as high as $1,000. Tight corporate budgets will give clients more leverage to push to pay by the project or for successful outcomes.

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Law schools may also become more serious about curriculum reform. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching released an influential report that, among other things, urged law schools to make better use of the sometimes-aimless second and third years. If law jobs are scarce, there will be more pressure on schools to make the changes Carnegie suggested, including more focus on practical skills.