The role of Milwaukee in recruiting diverse attorneys

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Milwaukee is a diverse metropolis. The area was diverse even before the arrival of the first Europeans, and every person to arrive since then has increased the region’s diversity.

In addition to diversity of race, color, and national origin, Milwaukee possesses expansive diversity of religious belief and sexual orientation, and actively promotes the success of its citizens regardless of gender, or disability, or age. The city has majority-minority status, and its youngest residents have had that status since 1978. (Jack Norman and Georgia Pabst, Majority Minority: Seeds Of City’s Future Lie In Its Diversity (Aug. 22, 1999) (www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=126159).

Mirroring this internal diversity, the area has seen an explosive growth in international trade — and a corresponding increase in external diversity. Because Milwaukee is so diverse in so many ways, a law firm located or working in Southeastern Wisconsin can increase its value to its clients — and eventually increase its client base — by recruiting and retaining equally diverse attorneys.

This is not to say that diversity trumps expertise. If a law firm needs to hire an attorney who understands what the IRS means when it says “[e]very organization described in IRC 501(c)(3) is further classified under IRC 509(a) as either 1) a private foundation, or 2) other than a private foundation if it qualifies under IRC 509(a)(1), (2), (3), or (4),” www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/509a3guidesheetexplanation.pdf, then it needs to get that expertise, period. However, if the firm is fortunate enough to find a pool of candidates who understand the interrelationship between 501(c)(3) and 509(a), it may do well by factoring into the hiring decision an understanding of how diverse Milwaukee really is, and choosing accordingly.

Law firms can also use the diversity of Milwaukee to increase recruiting of diverse attorneys. But recruitment without retention is hard to fit into a profitable business model. For these purposes, retention does not mean remaining at a single firm throughout one’s entire career. Milwaukee is full of very successful lawyers who have made any number of moves during their careers, and the city has benefited very much from this movement among counsel. Rather, retention in the context of diversity means retention in Southeast Wisconsin.

So how does one address retention in recruitment of diverse attorneys, particularly those from out-of-state? My suggestion is to focus not on the diversity of Milwaukee, but on the diversity of Milwaukee. There will always be attorneys who are adamant that they are going to practice in New York (or London, Paris, or Beijing) — and some of those attorneys are born, raised, and educated in Milwaukee. But those of us who have chosen to practice law in Milwaukee understand that this community is a near-ideal place in which to work, to live, and to raise a family. Those three aspirations are shared by many, many diverse attorneys from outside the State. And it will be those attorneys who will not only come to Milwaukee, but will stay and (in the long run) make us even more diverse than ever before.

David Westrup is president of the Milwaukee Bar Association and he is a past president of the Wisconsin Hispanic Lawyers Association.