News Blog

About three weeks ago The Daily Record reported that Porzio, Bromberg & Newman PC in Morristown was partnering with minority-owned Love & Long LLC, largely in the name of diversity. Apparently, Porzio had been seeking an alliance with a "minority or women-owned firm" for the past eight months, and Love & Long turned out to be a good, and receptive pick. Both Porzio and Long report that they see this partnership as a win-win. Porzio gets to "increase the number of large corporate clients that [it represents] by increasing [its] depth of expertise and staff," and Porzio gets to "accommodate clients seeking minority representation." In other words, the larger firm in this case gets to compete for the business of corporate signatories of "A Call to Action: Diversity in the Legal Profession" and corporate partners of the National Minority Supplier Development Council (which include businesses like Walmart, Aetna, Coca-Cola, and Costco that make a point of hiring minority-owned firms for some of their work).

This is by no means a new approach. Back in 2007, also in Morristown, the firm McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter announced that it had purchased a 49 percent stake in Espinosa & Espinosa, a minority-owned 11-attorney firm in Weehawken. Under that deal, Espinosa operated thenceforth as a McElroy, Deutsch subsidiary. This move, McElroy announced, gave it the right to pursue legal work typically set aside for minority-owned firms. Around that same time, another such alliance sprung up between New York's Day Pitney, and the smaller D.C.-based minority-owned Gray Haile. Under that agreement the two firms remained separate entities but would "co-counsel on transactions when appropriate." Again these alliances were touted as win-wins given that corporate clients generally want to work with diverse teams, but minority-owned firms are often too small to handle the large volume of work.

Much ado has been made about these strategic alliances. Are they a trend? If so, is it a good idea for large firms to solve their diversity-related limitations by partnering with smaller minority-owned shops? In the case of the Porzio-Long partnership, since Love & Long is a three-attorney shop, three more diverse attorneys are automatically associated with Porzio -- an instant bump in Porzio's diversity cred.

In our opinion, however, such alliances have the potential to derail the entire point of initiatives like 'A Call to Action'. Such alliances leave intact the status quo within the larger firms. In fact, they could actually discourage law firms from making any substantive systemic changes. Therefore, this practice appears to be a short-cut to true diversity that has the potential to discourage large law firms from hiring and developing minority talent. If firms are able to meet their diversity goals by developing these alliances with minority and woman-owned firms, they'll never have to truly accept minorities and women into their partnership ranks. It seems to follow, then, that if this catches on, what we're moving toward can accurately be described as 'separate but allied.'

But perhaps we have the wrong take on this . . . ?

A new film, American Violet, opens today. The film tells the story of Dee Roberts (played by newcomer Nicole Beharie), a 24 year-old African American single mother of four young girls living in the small Texas town of Hearne. After her housing project is raided Dee discovers that she is being charged as a drug dealer even though no drugs were found on her in the raid and she has no prior drug record. She is offered a choice between pleading guilty and going home as a convicted felon, or remaining in prison, and risking a long sentence. She chooses to fight the district attorney, risking everything in a battle that forever changes her life and the Texas justice system.

American Violet is not a documentary--it's a narrative feature based on true events. The film was initially inspired by an NPR story by Wade Goodwyn. Much of the film was also "informed by thousands of pages of information provided on a range of stories by the ACLU" and a variety of media reports and legal documents, "including sworn testimony, depositions and affidavits, all of which can be found on the public record [the ACLU filed a class action lawsuit (Kelly v. Paschall, (2000)) on behalf of 15 African American residents of Hearne who were indicted on drug charges after being rounded up in a series of unlawful paramilitary drug sweeps].

This film has important implications for the war on drugs and plea bargaining tactics. "Sadly, the systemic injustice exposed in the film continues to plague us to this day, its root causes in urgent need of reform," Graham Boyd, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union Drug Law Reform Project said.

*American Violet also stars Academy Award® nominee Alfre Woodard, Emmy Award® winner Charles S. Dutton, Tim Blake Nelson, Will Patton and Xzibit.

Last Wednesday the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Riverside, CA on behalf of barbers who were allegedly targeted for warrantless searches by police in Moreno County (Los Angeles, CA). The ACLU alleges that Moreno Valley officers used the claim that they were doing ‘health and safety inspections' to conduct unconstitutional raids on African American-owned barbershops last April. The suit alleges that this behavior was racially-related as "five of the six barbershops selected as targets for these raid-style inspections on April 2, 2008, were owned by, operated by, and primarily frequented by African Americans." "The Moreno Valley police unmistakably targeted these businesses because their owners and clientele are African-American," said ACLU attorney Peter Bibring.

The lawsuit states that the searches were far more intrusive than was necessary to determine whether the shops were in compliance with relevant laws. "They rushed into the stores, blocked entrances and exits, and asked for driver's licenses from barbers and customers," said Peter Bibring, a staff attorney for the ACLU of Southern California. The officers also reportedly asked the searched individuals if they were on probation or parole.

If successful, the lawsuit could have a far-reaching impact on other practices by police departments across the country.

You can watch a video of the press conference about the lawsuit here.

Today the U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant cert to Mumia Abu-Jamal's appeal for a new trial. Abu-Jamal, who has been on death row for more than 25 years for the murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, appealed his conviction based upon the contention that prosecutors unfairly excluded African-Americans from his jury trial [See Batson v. Kentucky(46 U.S. 79)-- the case that formed the foundation for such a challenge].

Prior to today's decision, a Third Circuit panel reduced Mumia's sentence, ruling that he must either be sentenced to life in prison, or receive a new sentencing trial only on the issue of whether he should be sentenced to death or life in prison. Therefore, a separate appeal over whether Abu-Jamal is entitled to a new sentencing hearing may soon be taken up by the Supreme Court.

We will continue to watch this story closely.