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Wilkins, David

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    Urban Law School Graduates in Large Law Firms
    (Southwestern University School of Law, 2007) Wilkins, David; Dinovitzer, Ronit; Batra, Rishi
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    A Systematic Response to Systemic Disadvantage: A Response to Sander
    (Stanford Law School, 2005) Wilkins, David
    In a recent article in the Stanford Law Review, Professor Richard Sander argues that law schools should dramatically reduce or eliminate their affirmative action policies for black applicants because these policies harm rather than help their intended beneficiaries. Although Sander presents many troubling statistics about black performance in law school and on the bar exam, his core claim that blacks are harmed by affirmative action rests on the counterintuitive assertion that blacks who attend more highly ranked law schools because of such policies are hurt more by the lower grades that they are likely to receive at these institutions than they are helped by the benefits of graduating from a more prestigious institution. In a Response that will also be published in the Stanford Law Review, I argue that the evidence Sander proffers does not come anywhere close to proving that most black lawyers would be better off in a world in which the vast majority of them would attend law schools 20-50 places below the ones that they currently attend, and where hundreds of blacks who currently attend law school today would be denied the opportunity to do so altogether. Affirmative action has played a crucial role in helping black lawyers to overcome the systematic and persistent obstacles that continue to make it more difficult for these new entrants to succeed notwithstanding the progress the country has made in reducing the overt discrimination that for the first two centuries of our history kept blacks out of virtually every desirable aspect of American society. Indeed, it is precisely because these policies have been so successful that for the first time blacks with high grades from lower-status schools have a plausible chance of gaining entry into high-paying positions in the legal profession. These tentative gains, however, are unlikely to continue if the number of black graduates from highly-ranked schools were to decline dramatically. Although the picture is more complex with respect to those black students who are unlikely to end up in high-status jobs, they too have benefited more from affirmative action than Sander's analysis suggests. Equally important, the problems those in this group undoubtedly confront have as much to do with the way that bar exams are conceived and administered as they do with these students' potential to become competent practitioners. The argument proceeds in four parts. Part I briefly reminds us of the long and sorry history of exclusion that gave rise to the need for affirmative action in the first place and examines how this legacy continues to disadvantage black lawyers. Part II examines Sander's contention that grades are more important than law school status in the context of black graduates from highly-ranked schools. Contrary to Sander's assertion, black lawyers in this group gain benefits from their prestigious degrees that extend far beyond the starting salaries that they receive upon graduation. In turn, these fledgling members of the profession's elite provide important benefits to all black lawyers - and to society as a whole. Part III examines those black lawyers who appear to have benefited the least from affirmative action: those who attend lower-tier local and regional law schools. Although Sander makes a persuasive claim that these students face daunting risks in pursuing a career in law, a significant number plausibly benefit from their legal education, even if they do not go on to become lawyers. Moreover, given that bar passage is the most important obstacle facing blacks in this group, we can gain as many new black lawyers by reforming the way that such exams are administered and taken as Sander claims will result from eliminating affirmative action. Part IV briefly concludes by arguing that, rather than improving conditions for black lawyers, Sander's proposal runs the risk of making many of the problems he identifies worse.
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    Why Are There So Few Black Lawyers in Corporate Law Firms An Institutional Analysis
    (California Law Review Inc., 1996) Wilkins, David; Gulati, G. Mitu
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    The Rise of the Corporate Legal Elite in the BRICS: Implications for Global Governance
    (The Boston College Law School, 2013) Wilkins, David; Papa, Mihaela
    Both international relations scholars interested in the future of global governance and sociologists of the legal profession studying the globalization of the legal services market are devoting increasing attention to rising powers, particularly the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). Yet very little of this rich literature addresses the intersection between these two theoretical domains. In this Article, we explore one such intersection that is likely to be increasingly important in the coming years: the role that the new corporate legal elite emerging within the BRICS countries will play in shaping global governance. We conceptualize three processes through which this new elite can exert its influence: participation in corporate legal networks, engagement in the integration of the legal industry and of the world economy generally, and facilitation of the global rule of capital. Based on the analysis of these processes in the BRICS context, this Article discusses the potential implications of this new corporate legal elite for global governance—both of the legal profession and of the world generally. We conclude by proposing a research agenda for advancing scholarship at the intersection of international relations and the sociology of the legal profession.
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    Disability Cause Lawyers
    (2012) Waterstone, Michael E.; Stein, Michael; Wilkins, David
    There is a vast and growing cause lawyering literature demonstrating how attorneys and their relationship to social justice movements matter greatly for law’s ability to engender progress. But to date, there has been no examination of the work of ADA disability cause lawyers as cause lawyers. Similarly, despite an extensive literature focused on the ADA’s revolutionary civil rights aspects and the manner in which the Supreme Court’s interpretation of that statute has stymied potential transformation of American society, no academic accounts of disability law have focused on the lawyers who bring these cases. This Article responds to these scholarly voids. We conducted in-depth interviews with many of the nation’s leading disability rights cause lawyers. What we found makes three novel contributions. As the first examination of the activities of these public interest lawyers and their advocacy, it brings to light a neglected sector of an otherwise well-examined field. In doing so, this Article complements, but also complicates, the cause lawyering literature by presenting a vibrant and successful cohort of social movement lawyers who in some ways emulate their peers and in other ways have a unique perspective and mode of operation. The Article also forces a reconsideration of academic critiques of the efficacy and transformative potential of the ADA because it demonstrates how disability cause lawyers have effectively utilized the statute to achieve social integration in the shadow of the Court’s restrictive jurisprudence.
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    Hiring Teams, Firms and Lawyer: Evidence of the Evolving Relationships in the Corporate Legal Market
    (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) Coates, John; DeStefano, Michele; Wilkins, David; Nanda, Ashish
    How are relationships between corporate clients and law firms evolving? Drawing on interview and survey data from 166 chief legal officers of S&P 500 companies from 2006–2007, we find that—contrary to standard depictions of corporate client-provider relationships—(1) large companies have relationships with ten to twenty preferred providers; (2) these relationships continue to be enduring; and (3) clients focus not only on law firm platforms and lead partners, but also on teams and departments within preferred providers, allocating work to these subunits at rival firms over time and following “star” lawyers, especially if they move as part of a team. The combination of long-term relationships and subunit rivalry provides law firms with steady work flows and allows companies to keep cost pressure on firms while preserving relationship-specific capital, quality assurance, and soft forms of legal capacity insurance. Our findings have implications for law firms, corporate departments, and law schools.
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    Cause Lawyering for People with Disabilities
    (Harvard University, Harvard Law School, 2010) Stein, Michael; Waterstone, Michael Evan; Wilkins, David
    Almost since its enactment, scholars, policymakers, and jurists have been critical of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In Law and Contradictions of the Disability Rights Movement, Professor Samuel Bagenstos moves beyond the standard critiques of the ADA to provide a more nuanced – and for disability rights advocates, an ultimately more unsettling – explanation of the ADA’s failure to achieve its lofty goals. Bagenstos rejects that claim that the Supreme Court jurisprudence in this area, including decisions with which he disagrees, is either the byproduct of judicial backlash or inartfully crafted legislation. Instead, he argues that a central reason for the ADA’s limited success is the inherent plurality of the disability rights movement itself. This diversity of interests has created tensions within the movement’s goals, allowing the Rehnquist Court to select interpretations of the scope of disability rights from among a competing set of principles articulated by members of this “large and contentious” movement. Professor Bagenstos has made a unique and important contribution to our understanding of what has happened to the ADA, particularly with respect to its fate in the Supreme Court. But by calling attention to the tensions within the disability rights movement, we suggest that Professor Bagenstos implicitly raises an even more fundamental question: given that internal divisions have undermined the movement’s goals, why have disability rights advocates failed to develop strategies for bridging – or at the very least, camouflaging – their differences in order to present a more effective, united front? We use this Review as an opportunity to discuss the role of “disability cause lawyering,” a topic unaddressed by both the disability rights and cause lawyering scholarship. Disability cause lawyers do exist, although, as we demonstrate, they have been surprisingly absent from the ADA cases that have gone to the Supreme Court. Rather than initiating and actively litigating cases that have gone up to the Court, disability cause lawyers have either participated through amicus briefs or worked to keep the occasional case off the Supreme Court docket. This, we suggest, has created a vacuum for the types of tensions identified by Professor Bagenstos to express themselves. Nevertheless, disability cause lawyers have been actively at work enforcing the non-employment provisions of the ADA, where they have brought broad cases benefiting large classes of people with disabilities. These cases appear not to raise, or at least to elide, the contradictory shoals that Bagenstos argues have undermined the efforts of those interested in disability rights. We examine why disability cause lawyers have pursued a strategy that places very little emphasis on the Court, noting that despite this strategy’s success, it has also negatively impacted the ADA’s antidiscrimination agenda. Finally, we conclude by suggesting that recent events signal the time has come for disability rights cause lawyers to reclaim the Act’s employment-law provisions, including strategically reengaging Supreme Court litigation. We provide some suggestions for how advocates might do so in a way that could help resolve some of the tensions that Professor Bagenstos describes.