Diversity Rears Its Ugly Head Again

I was flipping through the local legal journal this week, and came across a charming little tidbit on our State Supreme Court supporting a new initiative in the legal community of our state. It seems that someone got looking around and determined that the legal community did not represent the diverse make up the state's population, and since our bar is always quick to embrace notions of diversity and political correctness, it was decided that SOMETHING MUST BE DONE! That something was the spontaneous formation of a consensus that we must diversify the legal community to reflect the population of the state, or PEOPLE WOULD LOSE CONFIDENCE IN THE PROFESSION. Therefore, the state supreme court, and prominent members of the bar set up a group to help make this a reality, and even established guidelines to help smaller law firms meet this perceived need for diversity.

Fortunately, the measures are voluntary, for the time being, but I fully expect that we have them mandated to us sooner than I'd like. Why does this bother me? Because if diversity is forced upon us, we lose our freedom of association...I don't get to chose who I do business with, and the diversity will become a moral imperative to override such factors as, say....merit?

I am very tired of an organization that compells my membership requiring me at every turn to accept doctrines and beliefs that I find personally, professionally, and yes, morally repugnant.

Yea. I've Arrived.

I went to court yesterday on a simple matter, and of course, was waiting for the Judge's Clerk to open the court room. During this time, I had three people come up to me and ask me if I was an attorney. As I waited at Judicial Administration, I had another person ask me. On my way to the Court Clerk's Office, another asked me. After six years of practicing, I guess I finally look like an attorney, whatever that means. What did these people want from me? Free legal advice, of course. I guess I better get used to it. Barry the Blessed™ wants me to give it away anyway.

Lest Anyone Get The Wrong Impression About Other Members of My Tribe...

H/T to the Hostages for this story:



http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/03/21/0321reposa.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=52

And it was a double bonus. I had to look up "contumacious".

Little did I know it could be applied to me.