In Raising the Bar, four partners of colour from leading law firms engage in a no-holds-barred conversation about what it takes to make it in big law using their own journeys to the top to discuss how law firms can do a better job of attracting and holding on to a more diverse set of young attorneys. They also offer advice to the attorneys themselves on how to succeed in a culture that has long excluded them, including finding mentors among those who don t look like you, building a portable toolkit of skills, establishing key connections outside the firm, and staying true to you, even as young associates of colour navigate the foreign terrain of insular firm culture.

Author Biography

Debo P. Adegbile is a partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr and co-chair of the firm's Anti-Discrimination Practice. He lives in New York. Lisa Davis is a partner in the Entertainment Group at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz. She lives in New York. Damaris Hernandez is the first Latina partner in Cravath, Swaine & Moore's litigation department. She lives in New York. Ted Wells is a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and co-chair of the firm's litigation department. He lives in New York. Anthony C. Thompson is a professor and faculty director of the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at New York University School of Law. He is the author of Releasing Prisoners, Redeeming Communities and Dangerous Leaders, and a co-author, with Sherrilyn Ifill, Loretta Lynch, and Bryan Stevenson, of A Perilous Path. He lives in New York.