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I am a mix of everything- Puerto Rican, Irish, German, English and Spanish...

I'm tan; not "black"

My question: How much will this determine job prospects for me? There is a stigma associated with lawyers, I feel like people expect to see a certain person handling their cases, and someone who looks like me may not be the ideal... I don't want to rely on affirmative action and URM B.S. I want to get into law school and get hired based on my hard work and merit.

Any thoughts?

If being PR can help you get a boost, you'd be a fool not to take it.

URM's don't receive an overall boost in employment. Many large law firms (and some government) will consider a URM outside of their range, but the URM's eligible for a boost of that nature still have to beat out all of the other URM's that applied for the job. Once you move away from those types of employers and start looking at smaller firms, URM's are far worse off than the average non-URM. It's the result of a variety of factors, but there is no real point in going into them.

I'll take the boost of being a URM for LS, however, I kind of feared what Aberzombie said about smaller firms.

People see green. Have a great work product, attitude, and personality people won't care if you purple. Well to some extent. For URM's the general thought has been for big firms that if a non-urm could get an interview at say top 25% then maybe a URM could get one at maybe top 40%. However, getting the interview isn't enough and you will probably have to wow them with your grades. Below median and URM is a bad place to be. Above median and URM you might be a little more secure biglaw wise than the non URMs.

Also the small firm thing I think holds true. Most likely the reason being that a lot of times those jobs are received through connection. A lot of URMs do not have connections is law or else they would probably not be URMs in the first place. Therefore, small firms sometimes tend to go with what they know becasue they cannot afford to take a chance and there isn't as much of a demand from their clients for diversity.

edit: sorry i meant wow them with your personality didn't make sense with what I said.

Lacepiece23 wrote:People see green. Have a great work product, attitude, and personality people won't care if you purple. Well to some extent. For URM's the general thought has been for big firms that if a non-urm could get an interview at say top 25% then maybe a URM could get one at maybe top 40%. However, getting the interview isn't enough and you will probably have to wow them with your grades. Below median and URM is a bad place to be. Above median and URM you might be a little more secure biglaw wise than the non URMs.

Also the small firm thing I think holds true. Most likely the reason being that a lot of times those jobs are received through connection. A lot of URMs do not have connections is law or else they would probably not be URMs in the first place. Therefore, small firms sometimes tend to go with what they know becasue they cannot afford to take a chance and there isn't as much of a demand from their clients for diversity.

That makes sense- Thanks man! I figured as much, at least there is hope. I go to school at UAlbany and intern at the State Senate which has allowed me to network with a lot of great people. It probably won't help me with a job, but I have political aspirations, it's a start...

GregoryADevine wrote:

Lacepiece23 wrote:People see green. Have a great work product, attitude, and personality people won't care if you purple. Well to some extent. For URM's the general thought has been for big firms that if a non-urm could get an interview at say top 25% then maybe a URM could get one at maybe top 40%. However, getting the interview isn't enough and you will probably have to wow them with your grades. Below median and URM is a bad place to be. Above median and URM you might be a little more secure biglaw wise than the non URMs.

Also the small firm thing I think holds true. Most likely the reason being that a lot of times those jobs are received through connection. A lot of URMs do not have connections is law or else they would probably not be URMs in the first place. Therefore, small firms sometimes tend to go with what they know becasue they cannot afford to take a chance and there isn't as much of a demand from their clients for diversity.

That makes sense- Thanks man! I figured as much, at least there is hope. I go to school at UAlbany and intern at the State Senate which has allowed me to network with a lot of great people. It probably won't help me with a job, but I have political aspirations, it's a start...

There are people with similar backgrounds here at Cornell. Seems like it helped them.