Good Morning, y’all.
This year I am a student in Desiree Adaway’s Freedom School, a course taught from a black feminist perspective (Audre! Angela! bell!) focusing on analysis, intellectual framework, and practical tools to think critically about oppression and actively move towards liberation. We started with one of my favorites, identity (Audre!).
Among the reading for the first class is a piece that discusses the ways in which white women continue to promote, implement, and reinforce patriarchal and capitalist models of leadership. One of the points made is that the focus on the future or a future vision that is valued or more important than anything that may be happening in the present – including challenges or problems that need to be addressed now. And that focus is unrealistic because reaching that future vision is not a fix. And more than likely, you don’t ever reach that future vision. If you do reach it, it won’t fix anything. (Why? Those now problems you aren’t addressing.).
On that point, this past weekend I was chatting with a friend who works at a firm in another part of the country. That person told me that instead of the founding partner or any of the other partners (all white, with one white woman) addressing any of the firm’s issues regarding associate retention – structural, cultural, educational, etc. – the firm implemented a deferred compensation program.
Let me repeat: the firm cannot keep associates because of current issues with structure, culture, and education. Associates leave. As a solution, the firm looked to the future. The firm will pay you 2/3 of a first year base salary and defer the final third until you have been here six years. Your second year, the firm will pay you a little more and keep a little less as deferred compensation. If you leave before the six years, you lose every deferred salary dollar. Now lawyers graduate with a lot of debt, unless someone else is paying those bills. Not only are these associates struggling to get by during these years on a considerably smaller salary, but the associates are still leaving this firm. The future plan is not working. Big surprise!
If the future vision is to be a viable law firm years down the road, the future vision plan isn’t working. If the future vision is a law firm that lasts long beyond the lifetime of the founding partners – a legacy - the future vision plan isn’t working. If the future vision is to keep more money as associates still leave, well, that plan is working - for now. In the interim, people are miserable, and associates keep leaving. They’ll keep leaving. And the future does not look bright for your firm.
What fuckery is this? It’s patriarchy. It’s capitalism. Your future vision is cutting you down now.
(I have so many other thoughts on this firm and the focus on future vision. But this is all for now.)
Mug: Society6 / CynthiaF