"if You can't Join 'Em, Beat 'Em!": The Rise and Fall of the Black Corporate Law Firm‪.‬

"The premise was that we could grow a national firm from the bottom up. That was the unspoken dream of all of the participants." (1) "It was the first time I had been in any office of any size, certainly the first time in a law office of any size, where you could go from office to office to office, floor to floor, and see black people practicing in commercial practice at the highest levels. It was a wee bit short of a spiritual experience for me. At the end of the day, the hiring partner said, 'Clearly you have the talent to do the work. We only ask that you have the will to live our mission to build an institution of talented but purposeful black lawyers.'" (2)