On April 8, 2022, Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Black woman, was appointed to the US Supreme Court. It took 232 years and 115 prior appointments for the US to appoint a Black woman to its highest court. Four women now sit on the Supreme Court, another first for our southern neighbor. Many jurists say that Judge Jackson’s appointment will not shift the ideological stance of the court, with its 6-3 conservative majority. I cannot agree. Every new appointment that diversifies the court shifts the status quo. The shift may be a tremor and not an earthquake, but it has been felt and should not be underestimated. Judge Jackson will bring her perspective and experience as a Black woman to the US Supreme Court. Her colleagues on the court will see her, will hear her. Issues will be debated and cases…

From time to time I like to draw on experiences from other professions as it brings diversity into our blog but it also provides a different perspective on the same issue. Today I am sharing a January 3, 2022 article by Dr. Jennifer Adaeze Okwerekwu, psychiatrist and STAT’s columnist, titled “What racism in medicine takes from us”.

In recent years, we have witnessed a workplace cultural shift that promotes work life balance by mastering the art of saying “no” – an important skill that is necessary to promote professional boundaries and avoid burnout. However, before you say your next “no”, consider the potential payoff of saying “yes”. Particularly as a junior lawyer, saying “yes” is an empowering tool that builds confidence by pushing you out of your comfort zone. Based on my personal experience, saying “yes” has been the three letter word that has helped propel my career. Below are examples based on my personal experience as a litigator when saying “yes” (despite instinctively wanting to say “no”) has paid off: 1. “Yes” to attending networking events solo. Showing up to an event alone is uncomfortable and awkward. The first instinct is to use work as a…

You know what they say about us lawyers: we’re “risk averse”. Maybe you knew you wanted to be a lawyer since you were 8 years old, the day you held your own in an argument with your parents. Or maybe you are a little more like me and ended up in law school because you knew you wanted to do compelling work and law seemed like a safe career. I’ve observed that as a group, we lawyers seem to like excitement but carefully curated within the bounds of our own risk tolerance. I’ve recently been thinking about how this common personality characteristic can limit us when deciding our own career trajectories. Admittedly, my decision to go to law school was not well thought out. I was young, and with some pressure from my parents to continue studying, I thought it…

While efforts have been made to address the gender pay gap in many professions, more work and education is still needed to achieve parity. The gap that many lawyers experience is shared by other professionals, such as physicians.