Minority Report: Progress Just Isn’t Progressing As Quickly As You’d Think

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Not so much this image.

Maine is known for many things. Lobster. Okay, that’s all I can think of. But it is memorable. Back in the early 2010s when I last set foot in Maine, I took note of two things. The freshness of the lobster and seafood was to die for. Second, I noticed that I when I looked around, I didn’t see many folks that looked like me. As it turns out, that experience would have a great primer for working in today’s Maine legal market. From Law.com:

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According to a new survey by the Maine State Bar Association, 28% of nearly 1,400 responding member attorneys said they have witnessed discrimination, disparate treatment, or problematic comments made on account of race or ethnicity within the state’s legal community…Of those 28% who reported witnessing racial discrimination in the legal community, 20% reported that they had experienced disparate treatment coming from members of the judicial branch.

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I know lawyers are bad with numbers so I’ll give you the summary judgment — this is bad. A rough estimate, and I too say rough because math(s) is(n’t) my strong point, means that 78 of the 1400 have both witnessed and experienced disparate treatment. That’s a bit much compared to what ought be the standard, zero.

The combination of data and personal experience speak to a lacuna in the legal field’s — or at least Maine’s legal field’s — ability to adapt to today’s racial realities.

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“The survey data leaves one with the distinct impression that as of 2021, Maine’s BIPOC legal community remains largely invisible to most members of the Maine Bar,” the article said. “The survey results are more or less what could be expected from members of a Bar that is more than 99 percent white.”

The report shared just some of the hundreds of attorneys’ comments, which were submitted anonymously and described the kinds of experiences they had with discrimination.

“I have witnessed quite a number of white attorneys talk down to and be generally condescending towards their non-white clients,” one attorney said. “I have also seen clients react poorly to nonwhite associate attorneys being staffed on their cases.”

Discrimination isn’t just a civil problem that needs to be dealt with either.

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“I regularly observe disparate treatment of Black defendants in charging, setting bail, pretrial release, and sentencing in cases, particularly drug cases, compared to white defendants charged with similar crimes,” according to another attorney.

This isn’t just a Maine phenomenon, though. We’ve covered disparate racial outcomes before, like that time a Tennessee judge put black children behind bars over a completely made-up law. As the date the Supreme Court finds affirmative action unconstitutional because they have the numbers to do so, remember the data.

Maine State Bar Association Report Says Attorneys of Color Are ‘Largely Invisible’ to White Colleagues [Law.com]

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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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Affirmative Action, Courts, Diversity Equity & Inclusion, Maine, Maine Bar