Associate recruitment season has finally wrapped up at the big firms: all those hours of interviewing, callbacks, law school receptions and endless committee meetings. Firms arrived at their hiring decisions after scrutinizing applicants’ law school and undergraduate grades, work experience, small talk and, let’s face it, race, gender and sexual identity (LGBT). Diverse law students are in short supply. And firms, admirably, are looking to address the inequities of past discrimination by aggressively recruiting women, gay and minority lawyers. Firms also want to make sure that their workforces more closely resemble the ranks of their clients than say, the U.S. Senate.These are important and commendable decisions. But along with this definition of diversity, firms should consider trying to identify candidates who come from economically diverse backgrounds, too.
Whether it’s the latest census data, the economic polarization questions that kept cropping up in the New York mayoral race, or the 99 percent rallying cry, the issue of income inequality continues to dominate the national headlines. It’s a profound and complicated topic: Why, even after the end of the recession, is the gap between the top quintile of American earners and the rest still widening?
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