Legal Village

'Nancy CAN be black' – challenging public and partner pre-conceptions

Posted 8/04/2008 by Clare Murray

Andrew Lloyd Webber is currently searching for Nancy for his new production of Oliver! And on Sunday the voting public decided that of the 11 Nancy wannabees, the only two black contestants (Cleo and Keisha) should face the humiliating 'sing-off' to stay in the competition (made more humiliating by having to sing a Lloyd Webber tune).

A friend of mine that was also watching agreed with the vote, saying: “The public’s right - Nancy’s not black." And for a nano-second my brain raced back to the original film version of Oliver!, in which I’m convinced Nancy was a strawberry blonde, and I agreed too. Until of course I realised I was a victim of my own pre-conceptions; there’s no reason at all why Nancy can’t be black.

And the pre-conceptions also came through in the public’s reaction to Natasha Kaplinsky’s pregnancy announcement last week. The general view seemed to be that she was a scheming and manipulative harpie, taking advantage of those poor boys at Channel Five by daring to get pregnant after they had deigned to spend money promoting her. And even worse, many argued she had made things harder at work for all other thirtysomething women who might want to try to balance promotion prospects with family life. You’d think the ducking stool had never been banned.

But rather than being pitied or lambasted, these women (sorry gentlemen) should be praised as role models. They help us revisit and challenge our pre-conceptions and established views as to how society and the workplace should be. And law firms too.

One noticeable aspect of the recent raft of partnership announcements was the focus on female partner promotions, with many firms wearing the percentage of female appointments like a badge of honour. And it is indeed laudable that women are getting proper support on the partnership track. Of course, a better measure of success of those firms’ diversity policies would be to track those females over the next three to six years to see how many are promoted to full equity, how many reach the upper levels of the profit-sharing ladder, how many move into meaningful senior management roles and how many are still there after a second maternity leave.

The most interesting aspect, however, about the partner promotion announcements is the deadly silence surrounding promotion of candidates from ethnic minorities. Perhaps many firms feel it is less acceptable to categorise their candidates by ethnic origin than by gender. Others argue that there just aren’t enough associates from ethnic minorities to filter through to partnership level; but this argument cannot adequately explain the stark absence of partners in any significant number from ethnic minorities in the major partnerships of our profession. 

We have entrenched pre-conceptions as to how our profession should look and how it should work. Whilst we can stop and give ourselves a little pat on the back as to how far we have come in the last century, we need to encourage and support more people like Cleo, like Keisha and like Natasha Kaplinsky - talented, ambitious individuals willing to come forward and dare to say: “Please Sir, can I have some more?”