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Friday, June 08, 2007
Law - "Gay Lawyers Come Out as Clients Demand More Diversity"
Bloomberg.com has a long story this afternoon by Cynthia Cotts that begins:
(Bloomberg) -- When Coco Soodek, a corporate lawyer in the Chicago office of Bryan Cave LLP, was promoted to partner in 2005, the firm invited all the new partners to dinner at its St. Louis headquarters.[Thanks to How Appealing for the link.]Soodek, 36, was encouraged to bring her companion, Roxanne Saylor, 37. The couple was seated by the wife of the firm's chairman, and the partners' spouses were asked to stand.
``If I had one toe left in the closet, they made me take it out,'' Soodek says. ``There was no going back.''
Soodek's experience may be approaching the norm for gays and lesbians at prominent U.S. law firms, which compete to hire lawyers of diverse ethnic backgrounds, gender and sexual orientation.
``Today, elite law firms are behaving as good elites should,'' says Keith Wetmore, 50, a gay lawyer who is chairman of the San Francisco-based firm Morrison & Foerster LLP. ``They've become culturally sensitive.''
The number of openly gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered lawyers increased by more than 50 percent from 2002 to 2006, according to the National Association for Law Placement.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 8, 2007 03:33 PM
Posted to General Law Related