As the general counsel of Microsoft Corporation, Brad Smith has confronted a career’s worth of thorny problems—ranging from global competition challenges, to pirates stealing his software, to a famously convoluted corporate structure. But those may seem like rather tame
matters now that he has become the chair of the Leadership Council for Legal Diversity (LCLD), a national consortium of law firm chairs and general counsel. Over the past two years he has identified lower bar exam passing rates by minority students as a problem that can be addressed and presumably ameliorated with renewed and focused efforts. He points out that if the minority law school graduates were to start passing the bar at roughly the same rates as their nonminority peers, the numerical problem of underrepresented minorities in the profession would begin to disappear. Other issues would remain, of course, including opportunity and career advancement, but please, one problem at a time.
