My journey as a lawyer has profoundly changed how I value the impact I make. I have grown from the naïveté of a young lawyer, where I understood my job as enabling behaviors through creative legal arguments, to recognizing that some of those same arguments took advantage of legal flaws to maintain hierarchical inequity. I am increasingly deliberate about calling attention to inequity in all its forms and advocating towards a future where fairness is not just an ideal, but a reality. From this perspective, I believe it is critical for all lawyers to leverage our unique vantage point to advance equity.
I have closely followed and deeply respected the work of lawyers who have long scrutinized claims of equality across various facets of society, from tax policies and estate planning to the criminal justice system and beyond. We lawyers have been at the forefront of identifying the institutional frameworks that offer only a facade of fairness. The following are reasons I believe it is crucial for lawyers to lead the fight for equity:
Ability to see the law for what it is and what it isn’t. For example, the Civil Rights Act of 1964—landmark legislation that promised, amongst other things, to end Jim Crow and employment discrimination. Its application, however, has been tempered by an era of implicit bias, recalcitrant backlash, and the complexities of intersectional discrimination, keeping it from closing gaps in employment that have continued largely unabated for six decades. As lawyers, our training helps us identify jurisprudence that maintains the status quo and use our legal prowess to always point the law and its interpretation towards equity.
Ability to represent those who cannot advocate for themselves. A cornerstone of our profession is the promotion of justice and equality, especially where strong advocacy would otherwise be hindered by lack of financial means or power. In the tradition of those who came before us, like former Judge Constance Baker Motley, and members of the Legal Defense Fund, it is through our ability to advocate for those most in need that the greatest oppression in our society can be absolved.
Bound by ethical obligations to uphold justice. Lawyers have ethical obligations related to advocacy that drive us to pursue improvements in and the equitable and fair administration of the law. Where we see implementation of the law as disparately impacting marginalized communities, we must call it out and use our positions to drive behavior towards a future not encumbered by the ills of discrimination.
Understanding of risks and how not to let them halt progress. We are trained to anticipate, weigh, and mitigate risks to the benefit of our clients. When we have a healthy balance of risk assessment to passion for equity, we guide our clients to being better than what the law minimally requires, to value their people, and to continue progress even in the face of criticism and backlash.
Our understanding as lawyers must be that the law is a powerful tool and that our proximity to it places us in a special position. Our resolve must then be to use that tool to dismantle subtle biases embedded in the legal system and to inspire true change that promotes equity and justice. Then, in our varied roles as legal professionals, we will take our innate and most powerful position in the fight for equity.
