O'Melveny vs. Sidley (LA) Forum

[Anonymous User]

Anyone got thoughts on O'Melveny vs Irell for someone who's only moderately interested in IP?

I really like Irell. Outstanding IP group http://www.chambers-associate.com/irell ... m-rankings
Huge PPP. Progressive and diverse firm if that matters to you. Their chairman is African American and he seems cool in articles (never met him personally). https://abovethelaw.com/2018/01/changin ... ce-of-law/

Diverse? Irell might very well be the least diverse biglaw firm in the US in terms of URMs and women in the partnership. Less than 10% women and literally only one AA attorney and one Hispanic partner (two attorneys overall...)

All biglaw firms are bad statistically, but Irell's no worse and Irell's partners voted an African American as their chairman. I think it's fair to call them progressive and diverse.

Irell - 38/46 (83%) partners are white https://nalpdirectory.com/employer_prof ... rell%22%7D

O'Melveny - 184/211 (87%) partners are white https://nalpdirectory.com/employer_prof ... veny%22%7D

Sidley - errrr, NALP doesn't have their firmwide totals and I'm not adding the numbers for its nine offices so Sidley LOS ANGELES - 51/63 (81%) partners are white https://nalpdirectory.com/employer_prof ... dley%22%7D

I wouldn't say that a firm (any firm, not just Irell) is progressive or diverse by virtue of making a POC their chairman; it just means they used their token POC to make it seem like they care about diversity. But yes, diversity sucks everywhere. Rather than looking at stats or chairpersons, I focus more on whether firms put resources into the community; a problem with diversity is that the candidate pool isn't very diverse, so if firms actually care about fixing that, then they're more likely to support community programs for high school and college students, and possibly more.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone got thoughts on O'Melveny vs Irell for someone who's only moderately interested in IP?

I really like Irell. Outstanding IP group http://www.chambers-associate.com/irell ... m-rankings
Huge PPP. Progressive and diverse firm if that matters to you. Their chairman is African American and he seems cool in articles (never met him personally). https://abovethelaw.com/2018/01/changin ... ce-of-law/

Diverse? Irell might very well be the least diverse biglaw firm in the US in terms of URMs and women in the partnership. Less than 10% women and literally only one AA attorney and one Hispanic partner (two attorneys overall...)

All biglaw firms are bad statistically, but Irell's no worse and Irell's partners voted an African American as their chairman. I think it's fair to call them progressive and diverse.

Irell - 38/46 (83%) partners are white https://nalpdirectory.com/employer_prof ... rell%22%7D

O'Melveny - 184/211 (87%) partners are white https://nalpdirectory.com/employer_prof ... veny%22%7D

Sidley - errrr, NALP doesn't have their firmwide totals and I'm not adding the numbers for its nine offices so Sidley LOS ANGELES - 51/63 (81%) partners are white https://nalpdirectory.com/employer_prof ... dley%22%7D

I wouldn't say that a firm (any firm, not just Irell) is progressive or diverse by virtue of making a POC their chairman; it just means they used their token POC to make it seem like they care about diversity. But yes, diversity sucks everywhere. Rather than looking at stats or chairpersons, I focus more on whether firms put resources into the community; a problem with diversity is that the candidate pool isn't very diverse, so if firms actually care about fixing that, then they're more likely to support community programs for high school and college students, and possibly more.

That's what people said about President Obama's election, i.e. that voting to make a POC president doesn't mean you're not racist. But I'm not so sure. If you're a partner at Irell, and you voted to elect a POC as your leader and give them day-to-day responsibility for the firm's most important decisions . . . that's probably good evidence that you're not racist.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone got thoughts on O'Melveny vs Irell for someone who's only moderately interested in IP?

I really like Irell. Outstanding IP group http://www.chambers-associate.com/irell ... m-rankings
Huge PPP. Progressive and diverse firm if that matters to you. Their chairman is African American and he seems cool in articles (never met him personally). https://abovethelaw.com/2018/01/changin ... ce-of-law/

Diverse? Irell might very well be the least diverse biglaw firm in the US in terms of URMs and women in the partnership. Less than 10% women and literally only one AA attorney and one Hispanic partner (two attorneys overall...)

All biglaw firms are bad statistically, but Irell's no worse and Irell's partners voted an African American as their chairman. I think it's fair to call them progressive and diverse.

Irell - 38/46 (83%) partners are white https://nalpdirectory.com/employer_prof ... rell%22%7D

O'Melveny - 184/211 (87%) partners are white https://nalpdirectory.com/employer_prof ... veny%22%7D

Sidley - errrr, NALP doesn't have their firmwide totals and I'm not adding the numbers for its nine offices so Sidley LOS ANGELES - 51/63 (81%) partners are white https://nalpdirectory.com/employer_prof ... dley%22%7D

I wouldn't say that a firm (any firm, not just Irell) is progressive or diverse by virtue of making a POC their chairman; it just means they used their token POC to make it seem like they care about diversity. But yes, diversity sucks everywhere. Rather than looking at stats or chairpersons, I focus more on whether firms put resources into the community; a problem with diversity is that the candidate pool isn't very diverse, so if firms actually care about fixing that, then they're more likely to support community programs for high school and college students, and possibly more.

That's what people said about President Obama's election, i.e. that voting to make a POC president doesn't mean you're not racist. But I'm not so sure. If you're a partner at Irell, and you voted to elect a POC as your leader and give them day-to-day responsibility for the firm's most important decisions . . . that's probably good evidence that you're not racist.

That's a whole 'nother issue I'm not going to get into, because the conversation is about diversity, not racism. No one is saying law firms are racist for not having a lot of POC. I'm saying they're not diverse. Lack of diversity =/= racism.